My wife surprised me with a date night alone last night, for which we walked around the local farmers’ market and held hands. We held hands! Normally when we display even a hint of physical affection, one or more of our children will rush in to either get in on it or try to break it up. My middle daughter will literally clamber up my body and stick her head between our faces as I lean in for a kiss. Of course, she’s also held conversations like this when she sees us smooching goodbye in the morning.

Her: I hate it when you guys do that! It always takes longer!

Wife: But we love each other!

Her: Remember when you do it in the kitchen? Oh, I hate that!

As part of our date, my wife also surprised me with a small tin (you might recognize it as once having housed Trader Joe’s green tea mints) of moustache wax, in honor of my Movember moustache-growing efforts. The wax, I then learned, came from comb I harvested from some bees I helped relocate to a friend’s property about half a year ago, a process that netted me about 25 stings because I’d put the suit on wrong. Since they managed to get into my headpiece, most of the stings were on my neck and throat. I don’t recommend that. It’s like shaving, but with a blade that’s mad at you and wants to cut you over and over again, sometimes even by getting into your shoe and then down into your sock and waiting until you arrive at home to get you one more time.

My moustache won’t be waxable for some time yet—probably not till long after November—and she doesn’t really want me growing it out that far, so the tin was mostly symbolic, a sort of “keep it up!” made out of bee vomit and castor oil. Which, really, are two of the most motivating substances out there.

Thanks, Wife, for the wax! You may or may not find my chest hair sculpted into the Batman symbol when I take off my shirt tonight!