I was cutting myself shaving this morning when I wondered, "Why isn't crazy facial hair popular anymore?" It certainly looks better than a face full of bandages.
The worst part of shaving is these newfangled razors. You can't get anything with just one blade anymore. It's all stuff like the new Gillette Septuppo, with 13 times the cutting power, so when you slip and cut yourself, it's not just, "Ow, cut!"
Instead, you've got, "Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut!" all the way down your face.
We could avoid these terrible morning mutilation rituals if everyone just manned up and started growing ridiculous facial hair. Pretty soon it would be the norm.
Nothing says dashing, eccentric and possibly wanted in several states like a handlebar mustache.
They were once so prevalent that an entire industry was supported by them. Not only were there mustache scissors, waxes, brushes and combs, but even handlebar mustache "snoods," which are nets used by men to mould their mustaches into a desired shape and prevent them from getting messed up during sleep (Presumably mustache leashes and vanity plates are just around the corner.) A snood also means the flap of skin that hangs off of a turkey's beak, though I can't see any mustache-growing benefits arising from strapping one of those to your face.
Historically, the handlebar mustache has been associated with power and military prowess (see Col. Mustard in "Clue").
A quick perusal of Victorian yearbooks will show us that the once-great British Empire was built almost entirely on mustache power alone.
In fact, looking at its historical ebb and flow, size of mustache directly correlated to size of empire. As the popularity of housing a broom under a British nose waned, so did this once-powerful empire.
Some of our nation's greatest heroes have sported handlebar mustaches, including Buffalo Bill Cody, major league pitcher Rollie Fingers and Cap'n Crunch.
Perhaps the greatest argument for the resurgence of handlebar mustaches is their many practical applications. This stylish appendage offers amazing secondary uses like coat rack, walrus disguise and bottle opener.
If anyone should mock your fashion sense, you could always take his eye out with a well-aimed turn of the head.
James Caven is a student at Texas A&M University.
