Smile and the world smiles with you.

It's becoming something of a tradition for my son and I to wear matching Hallowe'en costumes, and I've worked this tradition into a sort of synchronicity with How Not to Grow a Beard Month. In 2007, on the eve of the first HoNoToGroABeMo (when it was just me and my blog), I shaved so I could be The Red Skull to Kyle's Captain America. Last year, my naked chin was necessary so I could play Luke Skywalker to Kyle's Yoda.

This year, Kyle wanted to be Batman.

He wanted me to be Robin.

While Robin is certainly clean shaven (having not quite reached puberty), there's just no way I'm going to don yellow tights and green short-shorts. I have my...well, it's not dignity, but at a glance it bears some passing resemblance to dignity.

I offered up what I felt was a more appropriate solution: The Dark Knight's eternal nemesis, the Clown Prince of Crime known as The Joker. But which Joker? Heath Ledger? Jack Nicholson? No, I decided my costume would be an homage to the greatest Joker of all time and—not coincidentally—a man who appreciated the value of facial hair: Cesar Romero.

It's no secret that Romero prized his own moustache so much that he refused to shave it before assuming the role of The Joker, arch-villain to Adam West's Batman. And that's why I'm sporting a moustache with my Hallowe'en costume, a moustache that I have just now removed (along with the rest of my Joker garb).

My face is cleanly-shorn and November is here. Let it begin.