It's Movember. Just gimme a mo ok?

OK, I’ve been donating to Movember for years now, supporting my mo bros out there because I could never grow a moustache. This year someone threw down the gauntlet. Funnily enough, we call her ‘mho’ (her user ID at work). She said that she’d donate $100 to the cause if I signed up. I think that she and I usually donate that much anyway. Still, I didn’t want to back down on the challenge. I had to check with the boss first, because I didn’t want to upset her, and this was a cause too important to back out of. So I asked my better half if it would amuse or embarrass her in any way. She said, “Probably both”.

“Well you know that if you hate it half way through November, I can’t just shave it off? I’ll have all these sponsors and I can’t let them down”.

I went three days without shaving to see just how lame it could look. It was pretty sparse. Well the ridicule is something I’ll have to live with. It’s for a worthy cause. It irritated my girlfriend’s face a bit. She agreed to live with that too.

I looked for a group to join, asked my colleagues and guys I’d sponsored in past years. No one wants in. One’s on holidays and gets back too late to join in. I’ve got several Asian colleagues like me who know they don’t have enough facial hair. A Russian colleague is too sensitive and gets itchy after a couple of days, then there are the guys who would feel naked shaving off their goatees and moustaches. One guy said ‘yes’ today. He’s my half-Lebanese, half-Dutch boss who looks more Arabic than European. Then he realised that he’s going to be in America for a couple of weeks in the middle of all this. He gets enough shit at the airports without facial hair. The last thing he needs is another excuse for them to ‘randomly select’ him for interrogations and tests, so we decided that it was a ‘no’ for him in the end.

Now I’m biting the bullet and going to give it a shot. I’ve signed up and I’m flying solo. Only five days to go.

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