A Skunk Fell Out of my Nose

We're people. People have preconceptions about things. One of the biggest (and perhaps silliest) sources of these preconceptions is people's bodies, even things that are completely unchangeable and technically wholly separate from one's personality, one's lifestyle, etc. Of course, some things are easily changeable, and thus all the more ready to be associated with different sorts of people. My favorite example: mustaches.

Think of all the ideas we have about people with mustaches, the variety of preconceptions we can get from different types of hair on one's upper lip, provided there's none on one's chin. A thick, wide mustache makes you look gay, Italian, or like a cop. A thin, wispy one makes you look like a child molestor. A stubble mustache makes you look 13. A handlebar mustache makes you look like you should be in a barber shop quartet about 80 years ago. A modern, American fu manchu (or as I prefer to call them, redneck boxes) makes you look like you really enjoy guns, NASCAR, and Wal-Mart. A real fu manchu makes you awesome. And of course a little black bar makes you either Hitler or Chaplin.

I had a proper mustache once. It was part of a Halloween costume (I was "Gay"). When I wore the pants and muscle shirt that went with it, gay I did look. However, my features and ethnicity being what they are, when otherwise clad I looked like a certain famous Brooklyn plumber who had adventures involving mushrooms and turtles. It was pretty awesome. But, eventually I gave up on it and shaved it off, and eventually grew back my more standard facial hair configuration.