Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Age Limits

At age sixteen, a kid gets a driver's license and goes a little wild.  At age twenty-one, legal drinking...woohoo!  There must be an age when female facial hair comes of age and takes on a life of its own.  Boys peer in the mirror, hoping to find a mere shadow of a beard, that sign of masculine maturity, that coming of age.  As a woman of "a certain age," I also peer in the mirror (increasingly magnified) to catch sight of an errant hair.  Eyebrows, once short, neat and tidy, grow to alarming lengths and poke out like antennae if not watched carefully and tamed.  Chin hairs are downright evil.  No matter how carefully I scan the face before an event, plucking every emerging offender, there is always one hair lurking that I won't find until afterward.  That one hair is accompanied by its own individual spotlight so that everyone else could see it, I'm sure.  There is a friend, even older than I, whose solution (and eyesight) required periodic shaving.  One approached her for a kiss on greeting with the same hesitation one would kiss a porcupine, with much the same result.  Curly hair on a toddler is a mass of ringlets.  When curly hair reaches that ill-defined age limit, it breaks free of the symmetrical spirals of youth and takes on more kinks and curves than Lombard Street in San Francisco.  Got a wild hair?  I've got a head full!

It's time to take the trash down to the big road.  I'd better brush my hair.

6 comments:

Jennie Bolen said...

HAHAHA, Thank you for my first laugh of the day! I'll admit something to you right here and now. My 3rd pregnancy, Nathanael, brought on one wild chinny hair. I couldn't believe it. My mom always has talked about them, and I always said, "Ew, I'll never have chinny hairs!" Yeah, well, you know what I say nowadays??? "Not by the hairs of my chinny chin-chin!!!"

Kathryn said...

I'm laughing and rather speechless...and have the same magnifying glass and tweezers - dammit (and why is it spelled that way when damn is this way?) I never, ever, ever have had ringlets, spirals, kinks, or curves (except chemically or curler-altered in days gone by), but the graying process does bring changes. My dad said that his hair was not wavy until he was about 12, and I kept waiting and waiting and waiting! At least we've got it - just wish it would stay put and not meander to the chinny-chin-chin!

Kathryn said...

Jennie, your comment was not here when I was writing mine - looks like you were finishing writing when I was starting - but we both ended the SAME - thanks of course to the 3 Little Pigs. Let me introduce myself - I have an aunt and uncle who live in Fiddletown (I'm just north of San Diego) and Bo knows my ex-sister-in-law, and hence, we were introduced, and Bocahontas starts my day off right every day!!

Jennie Bolen said...

We sure did end it the same, aren't we clever!?! :) I live about 15 minutes from Bocahontas. She helped me to save a baby goat I had here that wasn't wanted by it's momma and now I'm buying goats milk from her and LOVING it. Speaking of that, "Bo" will I be able to get more this Friday??
Nice to meet you Kathryn, her blog is definitely a good way to start your morning. She's a hoot!

Cally Kid said...

I don't mind the chin hairs. I've had them for a long time and I kinda like em. It's the random end-of-the-nose hairs and the ear fluff that I have to harvest regularly now. And you're right Bo, it's not uncommom to find or feel the missed one until you've already arrived at the function!

Kathryn said...

Hey Bo...if 16 is drivin' and 21 is drinkin'...when's "a certain age?" Am I there yet????