KAROL KUDYBA
Opinions Writer

With a deadline in a day, Opinions Editor Tomas Borsa told me that he needed 500 words for his section and that I could write about anything that I wanted to, which generally is a huge mistake.

But then I remembered an article that I didn’t have time to write last November, when facial hair was running wild and my upper lip looked like someone doused a peach with a bottle of Rogaine. I blame my mother; I take after her side of the family.

But while I can’t grow a moustache, thanks to my father, I do know what it means to have a great one.

A great moustache is one which can encompass all the biggest moments in one’s life, in one way or another. My dad started growing his right after high school. By the time he started university, it had gotten so thick that it helped land him a part in the school rendition of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. As he stood on stage, playing the role of Lucio so well that he was complimented by the Archbishop of Saskatoon, my mother spotted him for the first time.

She had been in the audience, and it was her icebreaker when she saw him in the STM library the next day. When they got married a few years later, not only did he still have the moustache, but he had convinced all of his groomsmen to grow musketeer style facial hair with him.

To have a really great moustache, it needs to be there for so long that you can’t be recognized without it. In 24 years, I’ve only ever seen my father twice without a moustache. The first time I was three, and it scared me so much that I grabbed my mother’s leg and wouldn’t let him get near me. He just wasn’t my dad anymore.

The second time was on a trip to Paris, though in truth I don’t remember much about it. Somehow my mother never seems to pull that photo album out from the shelf — the pictures just don’t look right.

When a person has really good facial hair, you can start to tell their mood just by its condition. When my dad’s beard starts getting a bit unkempt, the loose ends of his moustache blending in with the hair around it, you can tell that it’s going to be a night where he wants to be left alone to play another 100 games of solitaire on his computer.

But on those rare nights when my mom has pestered him just the right amount to make him think that going out was really his idea, he’ll walk out of the bathroom with his face freshly smooth and the edges of his moustache styled just like the day they were married, and my mom’s face will light up because she knows she’ll be able to convince him to dance for at least a song or two.

Most importantly though — and this is where a lot of people falter — great moustaches don’t let things like a first date or a job interview get in the way of their existence. Ten years ago, when my dad had his heart attack and spent three months recovering in the ICU, it never left his face. In fact, one of the things he asked for the next day was a pack of razors so he could make sure to trim it at least once a week. It’s almost like great moustaches have an innate sense of self preservation.

So no, I can’t grow a moustache. I can’t even come close. But because of my dad, I know what it takes to keep one. It takes commitment. More than a month, more than an NHL playoff run. It needs to be there so long that it becomes the first way that people describe you, and you’re no longer yourself without it.