Mustache Fetish Triggers Impossible Quest
By Ralph Dollinger
Montclair, NJ
As a child, Langdon Roberts was a major art fan. He would attend various poster stores and mall picture kiosks every Sunday with his mother Sherrie.
“I happened upon a Marcel Duchamp section at the local Hobby Lobby one lucky Sunday. I was amazed at his anti-art”, reminisces Roberts.
One piece buried itself so deep in his subconscious that it has yet to be psychoanalyzed. That certain piece was his wry commentary on Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” entitled “L.H.O.O.Q.” It was one of Duchamp’s early “readymades”, created in 1919. Duchamp basically took a print of the painting and simply applied a comical mustache upon Mona's lips.
“The next day, Langdon snipped some hair from our kitty ‘Nips’”, explains Sherrie, “attached it to some double sided tape and walked around impersonating Tom Selleck! What a riot!”
The following weeks would dissolve from cute childish fancy to downright obsession. He would take the Sunday funnies, and the weekly Kmart circular and draw mustaches upon the lips of every female. His sisters would wake up with sharpie handlebars on a weekly basis. “What a freak he was! He ruined my chance with Rex right before the Radish Festival ball”, recounts older sister Violet.
It became apparent that Langdon couldn’t even fathom a girl as attractive without sporting some upper lip hair. He tried dating girls in high school, but even after the long-term trust building period, Langdon would eventually pull out the undercover spy mustache or his pair of Groucho Marx novelty glasses.
“I saw no problem acting out their fantasies, so why not mine? Why not mine?”, sobbed Langdon.
The young man just isolated himself further and further, as the obsession increased. He would only leave the house periodically to sneak into Macy’s displays to add cartoonish mustaches to the mannequins. He was notorious in his hometown for hitting every movie poster the night they were placed.
Langdon decided it was time to act once in college. He recently placed various ads on all the social networking sites and dating services asking, “Are you my L.H.O.O.Q.-alike?” Many users on Facebook have been downright patronizing. One user implores Langdon to “Get a freakin’ life! No self-respecting woman wears a mustache!” Another says more of the same: “Why would a beautiful woman waste her looks on your pathetic fetish?”
Still, Langdon remains undeterred. “Think about it, that dude with the lizard ball piercings, and the guy with the puzzle piece tattoo covering his entire body. They both have girlfriends. Why can’t I just get a beautiful woman to start hormone therapy and grow a damn mustache for me? Is it too much to ask? C’mon!”
