March Mustache Madness Monday

Tomorrow is Monday, March 1. I will wake up at 6:30 a.m., hit the snooze button a few times, and finally make my way into the bathroom to shower at about 7. At some point before I emerge from the bathroom, refreshed and ready to take on the day, week and month, I will shave my face. This is all pertinent because it will be the last time I shave my upper lip before March 24.

In three and a half weeks I will be meeting my dad, brother and friends in Salt Lake City for the Sweet 16 portion of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. We will eat. We will drink. We will watch a lot of basketball. But most importantly, we will all have mustaches. All of these mustaches will be born tomorrow, and will mature through the rest of the month until we all convene upon Utah soil, at which point we will compare mustaches and declare a champion of March Mustache Madness. We will most certainly crown a loser as well.

There are a few things you may be wondering:

1) Who will have the worst mustache? -- My brother Joey. His mustache will look like he accidentally rubbed some dryer lint on his face. Its coverage will be sparse, its thickness will be that of fine rabbit hair, and its color will be dependent on the sun's position in the sky and the refraction of light through his wispy whiskers. In other words, it will be an abortion of a mustache. He will curse the genetic hand he has been dealt, and hilarity will ensue.

2) Why Mustaches? -- This should be obvious. Mustaches are awesome. Awesome Mustaches are the thing of legend. They inspire awe in all those who pass through their orbit. They are the subject of song and dance, and make ordinary men extraordinary. Fun fact: the authenticity of old-timey photographs is determined by the number of mustaches in frame. If there is less than 90-percent mustache coverage in photos taken before 1931, there's a good chance it's been faked. Totally true.

3) So, a contest eh? Aren't you getting a little old for this type of thing? -- First of all, fuck off. Secondly, if the Vancouver Olympics have taught us anything it's that friendly competition and good-natured mustache growing are part of what humanity should strive for. If we are going to usher our species toward the next logical evolutionary step -- hyper-competitive, mustachioed bipeds who enjoy watching other people be athletic -- we need to be a part of the mustache solution, and not part of the lack-of-mustaches problem. We're rocking the vote, except we're doing it with mustaches.

4) Seriously, why mustaches? -- Because we can, and we will. You're on notice Salt Lake. Consider your cookies dusted.