The Mongoose and the Mustache

A friend invited me to participate in a sunday afternoon literary society, in which everyone writes the first line of a story, and then everyone is given one of those lines and has 30 minutes to finish the story. I was super impressed with the caliber of people's stories- there are some seriously talented people here. From the not seriously talented pool, here's what I came up with:

“A man without a mustache is like a mongoose without pants,” said my stylist, but I didn’t think he quite grasped the concept of a mongoose. I decided to just ignore it, but as he finishing drying my hair, he kept going. “A mongoose, you see, is nothing without its pants. Do you understand me?” I almost nodded, but then realized that his scissors were placed precariously enough so that if I did, I’d suddenly look like a 10 year old boy. I’d already tried that look once, and it was not something I cared to repeat—Shelo Neyda, i’d told myself when it finally grew out—“May we never know such sorrow again.” Head still, I replied, “I know exactly what you mean. That’s beautiful.” He looked pleased, and went back to his deep focus on my hair. I could always count on him for that.

An hour later, I left his swivelly chair, hair considerably lighter, but mind still weighed down by the idea of a mongoose wearing pants. “What could he have meant?” I asked myself over and over again. I tried to remember the Rikki-Tikki-Tavi movie I’d watched incessantly as a child, but the only part of it I could recall was something about a bird building a nest and something that I think looked like a capybara. And the fact that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi never wore pants.

I thought about all the men with facial hair I’d known, seen or loved. There was Ricky (who was of course the first to come to find, despite the sad fact that his last name was not Tikki-Tavi). He’d sported a razor thin mustache, that while many could mock it forever, I had found entirely endearing. He looked like some kind of Italian jockey, though thankfully with better fashion sense. Then there was Charles, who’d worn what he referred to as the Chaplin, but what I’m sure you would recognize on another, slightly more infamous, character. He was so dedicated to it that he even dyed it black, despite the fact that his hair was naturally almost platinum blonde.

Lost in my facial hair fantasy, I somehow found myself in front of a pet store. It seemed out of place in the middle of downtown, and it felt both timeless and brand new. I hesitated at the door for a moment (I could feel my hair beginning to frizz in the humidity and thought maybe I should just go home), but then I felt the  handle turn under the weight of my hand. I walked in, blinked a few times to adjust to the dingy atmosphere, and realized that my sleek hair was now just a distant memory—it felt like the snake room at the zoo. There was no one at the desk, so I started making a slow circle around the shop. What kind of pet store was this? I saw all sorts of creatures I’d never even known existed. There were birds with lizard tails, guinea pigs the size of bears, and cats who liked me.

I bumped into a box as I turned a corner, and immediately a man emerged from the shadows. Finally, at that moment, I understood what Javier had been trying to tell me in the salon. On this man’s face was the largest, most elaborately styled mustache I’d ever seen. And on his shoulder sat a mongoose. Wearing pants.

“A man without a mustache is like a mongoose without pants,” Javier had said. They were both perfectly acceptable, I realized, but why settle for acceptable when you can have perfection?