Movember gets the cut

"Remember, remember, the first of Movember,

The barber's chair and shop

I see no reason why the colon cancer season should ever be forgot . . ."

Phuket Gazette staff at the end of Movember

What my right hand will do tomorrow when it no longer has a moustache to stroke -- I do not know. This month has been the first time in my life that I have made even the most wispy attempt of growing facial hair. I was against it in the beginning. Given where I am in my life and where I am . . . Phuket, Thailand -- infamous for sexpats and sex tourists, I really had  no desire to look like a pedophile. However, I bit the bullet, because all the boys at the Gazette had signed up to donate 50 baht to a charity at the end of the month and to "raise" awareness about colon cancer with our moustaches. (Mind you that there is nothing in our contracts forbidding us from having facial hair, so we were safe.) So, on Movember first we started the day with freshly shaven faces. There are a series of rules that must participants must abide by: http://www.movember.com/

I have no idea why all the farangs ended up in one group.

I have no idea why the Thai guys all ended up in one group.

An entire news office of mustached men runs the line of creepy and hilarious, usually depending on if you are in or out of know. Lunch at the "Cheapy" up the street was always a smile as four to six moustached men gathered around the dinning table in plastic lawn chairs. It's still hard not to laugh about the bit of vanilla ice cream caught in the corner of Chris's moustache after we picked up ice cream cones on the way back from lunch. (Ice cream is a standard after lunch occasion.)

To balance out my own upper lip hair, I went ahead and let a soul patch grow. I have become surprisingly found of the look. I found myself constantly fiddling with it and was pleased to be compared to Guy Fox on more than one occasion, perhaps it is a look I will come back to. But as it stands tomorrow evening my moustache is headed for the barber shop's floor. Hair cut, a shave and a massage (cost: $9) are all on the books to celebrate my first full paycheck and the start of my four day weekend.