Number 47: Wear a feather boa and movie star glasses to the grocery store -- Or a Mustache Around A Street Festival

Ah... the street fest. The quintessential must-do for every Chicagoan. Starting in early April, we begin buying oversized mugs guarenteed to get us one dollar off our next refill, making excuses for why we're not paying the "suggested donation" at the gate, and taking pictures of us acceptably drinking in public.

Good times, guys.

But not all street fests are created equal. And so, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce... Taco Fest. I'll start off by saying that one of the particular perks of this fest is that we had to do zero traveling as it was right at the end of our street. In fact, it screwed up my run and my errands on Saturday afternoon. But Sunday, Taco Fest redeemed itself. (And it had nothing to do with the tacos.)

Before acquired any food or beverage, we acquired some mustaches for participating on THIS:

Yep, that is literally a mustache ride. Gross name? Sure. Fun? You betcha.

Then came the funner part. (Yep, I went there.) Wearing the staches. I'm not sure when the stache became a fashion statement, but we rocked the hell out of them on Sunday afternoon. From group shot...

to acting natural...

to taking care of business...

we sported staches everywhere. And apparently people noticed.

My favorite conversation?
Guy sitting on patio at Mystic Celt: Oh man - did you lose a bet or something?
Me: Nope. Why?
Guy: You know... (Gestures to the stache.)
Me: I really don't. (Walks away. End scene.)

So, the mustaches had nothing to do with Taco Fest but they did help promote what is my new favorite pumpkin beer - the Jack-O-Traveler. I'm actually surprised I've never heard of this company before since they are Vermont based, but I'm really glad I discovered them. It was like drinking a piece of pumpkin bread. AKA Heaven. Anyway, I understood the staches... what I really didn't get was the appearance of A CAMEL at Taco Fest. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but when I see a camel, I think Mediterranean food... not Mexican. But there it was in all its camel glory.

And while I avoided climbing up there, I thought it would still be a good time to have my picture taken with said camel. You know, until it was hungry since no one probably fed it any tacos and it decided to eat my hair. But hey, no harm, no fowl... er... dromedary.

Here are the things I learned about sporting a stache.

- I have no shame when it comes to wearing ridiculous things in public. And I love it.
- Drinking is pretty easy while wearing a stache. Eating, however is HARD! How do you do it, men?! I had to take mine off to eat my tacos. My delicious duck tacos.
- After awhile, you get used to the stares. (This is me assuming all staches get stares, not just mine.)
- And... this. While photos of staches are hilarious, photobombing will always be funnier.

 

You stay classy, Chicago. Lord knows we're not.