Scary?

Which of these two characters would you most likely keep small children away from? If you said the dude on the left, I would agree with you. A seedy mustache is much creepier than a sophisticated goatee. However, many places I have worked/studied felt otherwise. They would allow a mustache, but a goatee (or any other type of beard for that matter) was strictly prohibited. I never understood this. So to prove a point me and a fellow coworker grew mustaches over the last week. He got more crap than I did, mostly because he saw more people outside of work than I did. At one point his friends put together a photo shopped a "To Catch a Predator" promotional flyer with him as the big star.

As for my experience with a mustache, one manager started laughing midway through a conversation and offered this explaination: "I'm having a tough time keeping a straigt face looking at you." I have had a goatee several times (I'm a rule breaker - I live on the wild side) and never once has this happened to me. So, since my friends didn't get a chance to rag me for my new look, I'm giving you all a chance to zing me. Fire Away.