The Death of a Moustachioed Hero
and no, it's not Mario

When I was a young boy there was one thing I looked forward to: going to the grocery store with my mom on Saturdays. Oh what fun it was to frollick amongst the aisles and "oooh" and "ahhhh" at all the delicious goodies I had to pick from. Cocoa Pebbles, Fruity Pebbles (if i was feeling especially sweet), Count Chocula, Snickers bars, Reese's Pieces, cinnamon rolls, cookies, sweet bread, Brawny paper towels, coffee cake, cake sans coffee, ice cream, regular cream, whipped cream and...

Wait a sec... Brawny?

How did that get in there? Brawny wasn't sweet! It wasn't even a food. Brawny was never sweet! Brawny was big and, well, brawny! So why Brawny?

Ah yes, I remember something else I used to love about the trips to the supermarket with my mom: walking down the paper towels section and looking for which paper towel mascot I wanted to have as a major influence in my life. Did I want Bounty whose mascot was... um... treasure or something? Not exactly role model material. Or did I want Scott, yes, Scott, who didn't even have the courage to show his face on his own product! He just had some sissy swirls of color to symbolize himself. Screw that, I didn't want to grow up to be a rainbow. Or was the rainbow thing that other brand of paper towel that's not even worth remembering? It doesn't matter. There was only one paper towel that caught my eye. Brawny. It was always Brawny and I wouldn't have it any other way.

What was there not to like about Brawny? The Chuck Norris lookalike that graced it's packaging was easy on the eyes. He had a moustache that Hitler would have been jealous of. He wore flannel, the fabric of the gods. If gods had a specific fabric. As far as I know they only had a specific food and drink, but they should have a god fabric! Anyway, long story short: the Brawny man was kick-ass. Sure he was smiling and that's a sign of weakness, but if you look beyond that bristly fortress of hair across his upper lip, you'd see he was hiding sharpened teeth in that mouth. If you crossed the Brawny man you were in for a major beat-down. And spills, oh spills crossed him so and he laid the smack down on them with gusto.

Such was his power that he absorbed my imagination like kool-aid on a parquet floor. I was enthralled. I would go home, put on the heaviest flannel shirt I could find, fish under the sofa for dustbunnies to glue to my upper lip and play "Brawny Dan!" That was a fun game. I'd run around in my Brawny suit spilling drinks on the floor and sipping them up. My lips were the paper towels and my spirit was the Brawny man.

I grew out of that phase of my life rather quickly but it was very influential on who I am today.

Bold, brawny, bitchin'. Those are a few words people would use to describe me.

People that don't know me, that is. But that's besides the point. Whoever I am today I owe it all to the Brawny man!

And then it happened. The Brawny man shaved.

He shaved.

Lost his moustache.

Lost his legacy.

All Gone.

His Chuck Norris looks are absent. His rugged outdoorsman appeal was lost. His youth... well he never had youth but somehow he's young now so I guess he lost his oldness. He lost everything! He's not what he used to be.

Instead he's replaced by a clean shaven joe-schmoe who looks like he's never seen a hard days work in his life. I bet he's never even talked to a lumberjack much less been one. How can I trust such a wimp to absorb my spills and comfort my trembling hands after being shaken up by such spillage? I can't! What is some pansy modern-day sensitive man going to say to me to help me through my troubles?

"Oh, it'll be all ok. That spill likes you, it just had to spill because that's what spills do."

"Don't worry. Everyone spills, you're still a good person and I love you."

That's not what I want to hear! Everyone does not spill. If I spill something I damn well better be punished for it. I don't want some soft man-hands grasping my soft man-hands and telling me everything is going to be ok. No. I want to be yelled at and to be kicked in the ass by Chuck Norris or a Chuck Norris lookalike

"You idiot! CLEAN UP THAT SPILL NOW. USE BRAWNY, IT'LL ABSORB YOUR SPILL AND YOUR SOUL. BITCH!"

Now who would you rather have clean your floors? That's what I thought.