Another Realization

As I was driving home tonight, I had another realization. I won't eat anything with a face, unless it looks like it's screaming.

The Accidental Collection

I was just drifting off to sleep the other night when I had an epiphany that made my heart skip a beat in a bad way. I sat bolt upright with a gasp, waking Emily with a start.

"What's the hell.........?" she mumbled, rolling to face me and scowling even more deeply than normal.

"I just realized something pretty terrible," I said.

We have been together more than a decade, and Emily learned a long time ago that if something is actually terrible or contains even an inkling of real heartfelt emotion, I don't actually communicate it in words, so she turn her back to me with a snort. It was clear to her that I had startled her awake for no good reason at all.

"Go to sleep, stupid," she said.

"Grr..." said Spoof, our intrepid terrier.

So I went back to sleep. Or at least I tried to go back to sleep. The truth was that I couldn't relax. What I had realized was actually pretty terrible.

You see, I have accidentally amassed a collection of mustaches.

There is nothing worse than having an accidental collection. It starts simply enough -- you buy some silly item on a whim. Later, you pick up another one to keep the first one company. Maybe you find a picture of one somewhere and point it out to a friend for a laugh.

But this Christmas, I crossed a terrifying threshold. I was given several novelty mustaches as a gift.

As I lay there trying to sleep, I made a quick inventory of my mustaches. There was Son Of Mustachio, a plush mustache that actually sports a mustache of its own. There was a smaller version of Mustachio (the larval stage, according to its maker) that I bought at a recent art show. There was the Mustache TV game I purchased on-line. And now there was a cardboard card with seven different types of self-adhesive mustaches attached, one for each day of the week.

That was four separate mustache related objects, ten mustaches in all. Eleven if you count the mustache on Son of Mustachio.

And now people have started giving them to me as gifts.

I broke out in a cold sweat imagining myself as a middle-aged man hanging out in barber shops, pockets bulging with small Ziplock bags filled with mustache trimmings collected from customers. I saw myself living in a house stacked floor to ceiling with photos, toys and books about mustaches. I saw myself attending various meetings of mustache enthusiasts, and I imagined myself lighting a candle to place before religious icons of Jason Lee and Gene Shalit.

I have entered a very dark place. Please tell my parents that it's not their fault.