Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Little Pluckers


I have never been a hairy person. I have grown long hair, past my shoulders at one time, but I was young and impetuous. I have worn a beard, as my avatar attests, but I was older, had gone away for a few days and left my razor at home so I just let it grow. Then again, my beard didn't really start growing until I was about 20 so it had always been an ambition to have one. It was fun while it lasted and as I was also terribly overweight, I could do a great Brian Blessed. The beard lasted 19 months. Head one, rest of body nil. OK not quite nil but I'd get a 66% discount for a sack, crack and back.

The rest of my body is taking years to catch up. There are a few new arrivals across my chest but these are only visible when I've just come out of the shower. Lower legs and arms have a light dusting of blond frondage but my back and rear end remain resolutely baby-bare and what covering there is grows stunningly slowly. Except that is, for the hair in my nostrils. For the last decade or so, every couple of weeks I've had to pluck, cut or pull several hairs of unbelievable length and thickness from each one. Otherwise they lurk, picking the most embarrassing moment conceivable to uncoil from their lair. I'll be totally unaware that they're dangling there, like great lengths of anchor chain swinging above my upper lip, until I visit the lavatory and look in the mirror. It's bad enough that for the last ten years they've been the same colour as the hair on my head. Different now though; nobody told me the bastards would go white.

9 Vegetable peelings:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

did the beard thing, then one day just had enough and shaved it off. Beards require just as much maintenance as shaving, and so in the end I decided shaving was easier.

11:30 am  
Blogger Richard said...

I shaved my beard off on my 46th birthday (I think it's documented on these pages at the end of 2006). I was staying with my parents at the time and the whole family went out in the evening: parents, sister and b-i-l and two nephews. Only my brother-in-law noticed I'd done it at first look. Cue many Lols. Everyone says it put years on me but I actually liked looking more avuncular. What's more, I actually felt friendlier. People look at you differently, almost more respectfully.

3:38 pm  
Blogger Dave said...

Having had a beard etc for years (and quite a lot of body hair) at least nasal hair merges seamlessly with that on the top lip, and isn't quite so obvious.

6:38 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, Dave, but if you ignore it you end up with nasal hair that dips in your tea.

7:39 am  
Blogger Rol said...

Have you actually used one of those devices (pictured)?

I always expect them to be really painful. Even more so than plucking.

1:41 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have you ever experienced the Phantom Hair? One singularly unusual hair, ghostly white, so papery-thin that it is a wonder it has survived intact. You do not notice until it has grown to almost two inches in length and then you spot it in the most ridiculous location - on your knee, your shoulderblade, your elbow - places hairs just don't normally grow. What a weirdo.

In other anecdotes, one of my lecturers last semester had enormous eyebrows that swooped out from his face at a jaunty angle. he looked like an owl. Perhaps you could make a similar feature of your nose hair - plait it or something?

8:18 pm  
Blogger Richard said...

Dave, yes that is one advantage of facial hair that I embraced. However, I KNEW the anaconda sized hair was still there.

Rol, I do indeed have one - it came as a free gift with my Babyliss beard trimmer. Not painful at all unless the batteries run out mid strim. Then it's eye-watering in the same vein as a prepuce/trouser fly interface.

Fathorse, I have one rogue hair, halfway down my left side that grows at warp speed. I have thought of training it across my chest. Eyebrows are curious things. I didn't realise that they are symmetrical. I have some rogue hairs in mine, thicker and longer than normal and each eyebrow has the same number in the same place. It's most peculiar.

9:25 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ears are next! heh heh.

11:32 pm  
Blogger Richard said...

DG, I think I may have passed on the ears. From what I can remember from my O level biology, one has to be genetically predisposed toward hairy ears. I can't remember anyone having them among my recent antecedents so I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one. Unless one counts the long blond ones growing horizontally out from the rims of my pinnas. Thankfully these are only visible if my hair is short and I'm backlit.

11:46 pm  

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