It couldn't last, but we had fun to the end. It was informative, it was a conversation starter, it flirted, it strained... No one just accepts a mustache. For the four weeks I let the rat crawl unfettered on my upper lip, the only ones to remain silent were my children and my mother. My kids are always unfazed by the hair on my face. It turns out my mother is, too. (Though few other things ever fail to be commented on...)

The majority of people didn't like it, though they communicated it with varying levels of honesty. Some people were down with it. One evening, Irene an old schoolmate of Melina's, said with brutal honesty, "I generally like mustaches, but that does not suit you at all." The next afternoon Matilda's friend's mother said, "I usually don't like mustaches, but that really suits you." I took it all in with a smile.

I thought it was fun to disturb my acquaintances with facial hair. It was my first foray in the world of lip fur. But in my heart I knew what the biggest problem was: it looked really, really gay. It was Blue Oyster gay.

And if being openly checked out by a gay man on the train wasn't confirmation enough, Melina's homosexual brother Harri said on Christmas Eve, "Ah, you have a new style. You look like one of us, so to speak."

Other notable opinions of how it made me look included: 80's retro, an old man, a British writer (especially when wearing my tweed hat), Ron Jeremy. The last one made my stomach roll...

It's gone... May its memory bring a smile to the lips it once adorned.