The Rest of the Story. . . . .

In 1961, two French scientists, while looking for a lost Frisbee in a snowbank in northern Siberia, stumbled upon a startling discovery: lying just beneath the snow was an almost perfectly preserved woolly mammoth. They never found their Frisbee, but their mammoth would soon stun the world.

On close inspection, the mammoth’s woolly coat was discovered to be composed entirely of mustaches. In a mutually beneficial arrangement, the mustaches had insulated the mammoths from the severe cold, and the mammoths, in turn, had provided the mustaches not only with warmth and transportation, but also with sustenance: for the mustaches would feed on the mammoths’ blood. News that the mammoth was actually a pink and hairless species rocked the scientific world. But even more shocking was the news that the once-noble mustache had become a lowly parasite. Riots broke out around the globe.

After several days, the riots died down, but anti-mustache sentiment persisted everywhere. The leading scientific journals published articles vilifying the mustache for driving the beloved mammoth to extinction. Angry mobs set out into the wilderness seeking vengeance. When they found a mustache, they shot it execution-style, then burnt the corpse to cinders.

Nearly a year after the initial riots, it was reported on the front page of the New York Times that the world’s last mustache had been killed earlier that morning. The news kicked off a global celebration that lasted for weeks.

Merrymakers around the world would have been surprised to learn that, despite everything, the mustache was far from extinct. But it was true: Millions of mustaches were alive and well, hiding in plain sight, right under their very noses.