I certainly don’t have the world’s most prolific set of whiskers, but especially for a blond guy they’re not bad, and they also seem to grow above-average fast. I guess everyone’s got to be good at something.

Since the summer ended, I’ve amused myself by going back and forth between a goatee and a stubbly beard. The problem with both of those is that after a couple weeks, the collection of gray hairs on my chin are a bit more noticeable than I’d like them to be, given that I’m still pretty well devoid of gray elsewhere. Then again, I am 47 years old, so gray anywhere should be considered par for the course, I suppose.

Anyway, mainly just for the heck of it, over the weekend, home alone for a few days, I decided to try a new-to-me look by going with just a mustache. To build up the courage to do so, I had to block out three-plus decades of my big brother Craig telling me how weak the mustache portion of my beard was; that Craig’s own ‘stache is roughly identical to mine never seemed to slow him down much.

With memories of the mocking sufficiently relegated to farther-back reaches of my mind, I set about Sunday morning reducing the goatee/stubble combo I woke up with into the best mustache I could manage. Looking in the mirror upon completion, my first reaction was, “Well, it’s not the worst one I’ve ever seen.”

I mainly kept to myself on Sunday — Jewel, the dog, had very little to say about my appearance, as is usually the case — and when I went to play handball Monday, another day off for me, nobody said anything, which was fine; I tend to take silence as a more or less a tacit compliment.

Returned Tuesday to work, where photographer David Patton said he thought the ‘stache looked good, and then made my way to a lunch-hour orthodontist appointment, where I was greeted by Sarah, the person who usually works on my teeth.

Sarah took note of the mustache by asking, “You lose a bet or something?” She’s quite funny. Really.

But later, after I was all done except for making my next appointment, a staffer named Debby who’s also helped me a couple times made a point of walking from the treatment area to the reception area so she could talk to me.

“I think your mustache looks good,” she said.

I sort of laughed but managed to convert the laugh into a simple smile and thank you.

“I do,” she said. “I like it.”

Returning to the paper, I was greeted by Kim Jackson, the newsroom’s undisputed ‘stache king.

“Hey, nice mustache,” he said immediately. “You look like the sheriff of an Old West town, or maybe a cop.”

Just for kicks, I then posted a photo to Facebook with the question, “Cop or fighter pilot?” Consensus seemed to be a Reno 911 cop.

Here’s the pic. Have fun with it: