Pet Peeve

If someone were to ask me, off the cuff, what my pet peeve is, I might hesitate, squint my eyes in thoughtful reflection, and eventually come up with "Utah Drivers". That answer would only pop out because of my poor short term memory, which could be Pet Peeve Number 2. Each morning I am reminded anew of my Number One Pet Peeve, which is chin hairs.

No matter how often you pluck them, you can count on new ones to take the place of those which have been yanked mercilessly the day before. The Chin Hair Fairy must sprinkle Chin Hair Fertilizer on me each night to assure a healthy new crop in the morning. Just this morning I plucked one that was 1 1/8 inch long, Well it wasn't a chin hair exactly; it was on my neck. Really!! An inch and an eighth! I measured it in disbelief. Had there been two more, I could have braided them! I had just plucked every visible chin and neck hair yesterday morning, same time, same place, as has become part of my morning grooming ritual. How in the world can a single hair grow that fast?

As we were growing up, Mom warned Kathie and me not to shave or pluck any hair on our body that we did not want to return with a vengeance. Now, some fifty years later, I find she was right (once again), and wish I had taken her advice. Kathie told me recently that Mom tried to convince us not to shave our legs at the onset of puberty. Well, part of the fun (there is so little of it) of being pubescent is to be able to take razor in hand, and slide it up an down one's legs, even if there is nothing to remove except skin. Never mind. The bristly stub of leg hair would come. And, of course, it did. But we were sure it was inevitable. Which presents another question for you "Chicken or the Egg" philosophers: Which came first, the leg hair or the razor? Leg hair is to be expected. Mom forgot to warn me about chin hairs.

My mother had a faint, light peach fuzz on her face, which I seem to have inherited. In my youth, my fuzz was not a concern to me. But I fear that now, given the diminishing feminine hormones, and aggressive male hormones which we're left with as soon-to-be dowagers, that the hithertofore harmless fuzz could burst forth as a man's beard with the Chin Hair Fairy's overzealous help. Had I been born a boy, and not heeded my mother's warnings about the effects of shaving upon body hair, I'm certain I would have grown into a man with an obvious five o'clock shadow. As a woman entering those twilight years, my "five o'clock shadow" manifests itself as chin hairs.

Do chin hairs come because we harmlessly plucked "just one" that seemed a little longer and darker amongst its peach fuzz sisters? Or would those that we plucked have gotten bolder and continued to grow until they reached waist length and invited their friends to join them? I don't know the answer to that. I just know I'm not willing to find out.