America’s Best Train, Toy & Hobby Shop (see yesterday) isn’t the only retailer I’ve visited recently, though it’s the most interesting by far in recent months. Not long before that I went to a much more conventional place — let’s call it the Hootenanny Hut, not because the place deserves such a fun name, but just because it’s a fun name. And if you decided to throw — hold? stage? — a hootenanny, you might be able to find temporary decor and other supplies for it at a place like this.

Anyway, Ann and I were there, and I had a few moments to look around. There was a whole rack of faux facial hair available, including an Old Man Set, Afro Beard, Hippie Mustache, Fearsome Beard, and a Hungover Beard, among others. The simply named Black Mustache looked like the kind of vigorous growth you once saw on one or another of the Village People’s upper lips.

One hair offering in particular caught my eye: the “Mr. Grouchy” set, which included a thick black faux moustache and two thick black faux eyebrows. A helpful photograph of a man wearing the Mr. Grouchy set showed what it was supposed to look like: an imitation Groucho Marx, complete with a large cigar. No cigar, not even a faux cigar, came with the set, however.

What percentage of Mr. Grouchy buyers, or even people who see it casually, know the source material? Just idle curiosity. Fewer and fewer as time goes by, I figure.