World's Longest

The world’s longest nose is approximately three and one-half inches.

Its owner, 83 year old Mehmet Ozyurerk resides in Turkey where he owns a small-town bakery. Annually, Turkey holds a longest nose competition. Annually, as you might guess, Mehmet wins. When he dies, the competition should be more interesting.

Michel Lotito’s diet consists of normal, everyday items, including sandwiches, pizza, steak, metal and glass. He is the record holder for eating the largest airplane. He says he drank about 24 glasses of water between bites. Witnesses say he did, believe it or not, consume the entire Cessna 150 airplane. Medically, Michel’s more than twice as thick as normal stomach lining apparently makes this possible.

Then there’s this guy from Japan who can take off all of his clothes in just under eight seconds.

Where else could one get all of this information than the World Wide Web?

Well, as it happens, you could read the Washington Sentinel. This is where my column, in which I have personally traveled across the globe to interview all of the aforementioned subjects, resides every Friday. We call it Weird People. It’s the most original title my boss could come up with. Yes, he probably gets paid too much money.

I just do what I’m told.

And tonight I’m at The Crest View Motel in Monterey, California. I’m researching subjects for the coming months because there’s nothing much on television. Any other trip and I would probably just go to bed early anticipating a stress-filled day of eating breakfast on the road while trying to find whatever remote location the subject has chosen.

For tomorrow’s subject, however, I don’t even have to leave the motel.

Badamsinh Juwansinh Gurjar, owner of the world’s longest mustache at nearly thirteen feet long, runs The Crest View Motel.

Obviously I should get off the internet and work on my pronunciations.

My boss hates me.

By now I have no idea what you are thinking. If you are my mother, you think I have a terrific job with terrific opportunities and terrific potential to become some kind of world-class journalist.

If you are my ex-wife, you think this excess of traveling leaves little time at home. You think I work too much, don’t spend enough time with the kids. You know that my boss walks all over me and my inability to say no feeds his ego and only gets me sent to more remote locations for longer periods of time to bring home more interesting stories that ultimately less people will probably care to read.

If you are me, well, you know that the latter is more correct than the former but doesn’t go nearly far enough. You know that these stories are meaningless because these people are meaningless. They haven’t really done anything that anyone cares about. Not really. They just have a big nose. Or they are dumb enough to think metal might be tasty. Or they are too lazy or stupid to just shave already. Bottom line is, all of them are starved for attention and think they are way cooler than they actually are.

And with each subject, with each interview, with each column, you know that your credibility as a reporter lessens and your mother’s dream for you, the hopes that your ex-wife clung to for seventeen years, your own career goals and aspirations slowly fade away and you realize that this will be what you do for the rest of your life.

This is why I have already decided that this will be my last subject. I quit. Early retirement. I’ll push carts at Wal Mart before I meet another one of these damned celebrated idiots who just happen to swallow a jackhammer or whatever.

The world’s fastest drummer has 1,100 drum strokes per minute. Who cares?

The world’s largest surfboard is forty-feet long and once carried forty-seven surfers. Seriously?

World’s largest family of jugglers is thirteen people who probably need to stop spending so much time together and GET REAL JOBS.

I cannot take anymore so I close my laptop and go to sleep. According to WebMD, the strongest non-prescription sleeping pill is Donormyl. The label recommends 25 milligrams or one pill, but thanks again to WebMD I know the lethal dosage is eight pills so I generally take seven whether I need them or not.

Tonight all I care about is sleep.

My wake-up call rings promptly at seven a.m. This gives me exactly three hours to get ready before Badamsinh (BAH-DAHM-SIN) gets done with the morning accounting. I pick up the phone, put it back down, and go back to sleep. For the man who refuses to shave, I certainly should not be expected to shower.

Housekeeping wakes me up at eight-something and I open the door and tell them thanks but no thanks.

Nine-whatever rolls around and I make sure the complementary coffee is nice and hot. The hotter it is, the faster the Donormyl should dissolve.

I have done taste tests before, and luckily Badamsinh takes his with cream and sugar.
“Mr. Badamsinh?” I pretend to be enthused. I like how the pad and pen and tape recorder always make me look like I care.

“Ah, hello…” I don’t know what else he says. The English is sub-par at best but I just press RECORD and push the tape recorder across the table along with the cup of coffee and Donormyl.

Mr. Bad, as I call him for short even though I practiced the name for hours, seems excited about the coffee. He is surprised by the taste. He continues to drink it, so I reassure myself that his demeanor is due to the fact that I knew he takes three tablespoons of cream and two packets of Equal rather than the unique taste of his forthcoming sleep.

I ask about the moustache and he tells me his childhood stories of growing in facial hair much earlier than his friends. He tells me this caused him “great pain” as he was so ridiculed in adolescence. He wants me to feel bad for him, so I frown a little for effect.

He yawns.

I ask him why he decided never to shave and he tells me his family never had the means necessary to shave and when he came to America the moustache was already of some kind of record length and the novelty of it brought his family some additional income from bystanders.

I ask him how he came from this to owning his hotels and he asks me if I haven’t noticed that Indians own all hotels.

I laugh as I assume this is a joke and he yawns again.

He begins to tell me about someone dying and some kind of inheritance as his head finally hits the table.

I press STOP. As I put the recorder away in my pocket I make sure no one is coming. Housekeeping, also known as Mr. Bad’s wife and kids, seems to be busy and front desk is engrossed in Days of Our Lives.

I put the pen in my jacket pocket and remove the pair of scissors. The sound is not unlike that of being in the barber chair and with just two easy cuts I have the first 13 inches or so. For the other I have to move his head, but I know the effects of these pills. He’s not waking up for at least eight hours, or until someone finds him and even then they’ll have to hit him pretty hard.

This is more satisfying than anyone may ever know.

In order to feel what I’m feeling, to hold what I’m holding, all you have to do is go to your grandmother’s house in the country. On your way there, when you pass the haystacks on your left, stop off on the side of the road and pick up some stray straw. You’ll need that in just a bit.

Upon arrival at grandmas, finding her car in the garage, open the driver’s side door. There, on the seat should be her super-old beaded car seat cover. She loves it. Refuses to get rid of it, remember? It’s worn, naturally, after it’s nearly three decades of use. Grab hold of it with your free hand. Your left hand still holding those coarse and dry pieces of straw. And somewhere in between these two things that you hold lies the thirteen inches of moustache.

Cool, huh?

And with just two more snips I pocket the hair and I thank the front desk and I’m out of the office.

Ten minutes and I’m in my car. With the full knowledge that Days of Our Lives has got another twenty-four minutes, there’s no way I’ve been caught yet so I ease out of the parking lot.

With a pocket full of hair.

I think half of it will fit nicely on my mantle at home. A souvenir. A trophy.

Award-winning journalism.

The other half goes in a padded yellow envelope, addressed to my boss. He won’t get it right away, maybe not at all.

Who cares?

This is my two week’s notice.