Oh, the hairs on my chinny, chin, chin! | Humor | Discuss

The other morning, while getting ready for the day, my 10 year old son asked me what puberty was.  Caught a little off guard, I turned it around and asked him what he thought it was.  “Well”, he began “Jay says it’s when your penis grows and you get hair down there.”  Then he continued “Does everyone go through puberty?  Did you go through it?  Will I?”  After a little explaining I answered this barrage of questions calmly and simply.  “Yes, everyone goes through it, yes I went through it and you will too, but not for a couple of years yet.”  Satisfied for the moment with these responses, he went about his 10 year old business.  But the topic of hair stuck with me.  No, not the hair down there, I’m talking about some hair up here.  Because while my son, before long, will be setting his sneakered feet on the road to adolescence, my feet are currently slip-sliding along the perimenopause path, and one of the sights on this journey is . . . chin hair.

This unfortunate turn of events is caused by a disruption in the delicate balance between the female sex hormones during perimenopause, a kind of second puberty, if you will.  This second go round on the hormone rollercoaster can sometimes result in unwanted facial hair growth.  So, as a lovely side effect of hormones gone awry, I have sprouted dark, thick, coarse masculine chin hairs, much like the kind that my son will be sporting a few years hence.  Ironic, isn’t it?

Oh, and the indignity doesn’t end there, gentle reader.  Not only am I now competing with hubby to see who wears their 5 o’clock shadow best, but a couple of these errant hairs actually have the audacity to grow in WHITE!  That’s right, not only are the chin hairs a-poppin’, I am sprouting salt and pepper chin hairs!  How sophisticated!  George Clooney would be proud.

Which brings me to my next dilemma – how to best manage my wayward whiskers?  While there’s not quite enough hair to coax into a trendy soul patch, there is enough that something has to be done about it.  My grooming tool of choice is the tweezers.  I’ve tried waxing, but unfortunately these uncooperative intruders all have different growth rates, so getting them all to a uniform length for waxing just isn’t feasible.  There is a prescription cream available through the dermatologist, but I’m not ready to go all pharmaceutical just yet. So, as each one pops up, I reach for my trusty Tweezerman and extract it.  Quickly.  Painfully.   

But, hope springs eternal.  Like, I’m hoping once the ‘pause hits and the hormones start leveling off, this issue will resolve itself (much like the creeping belly fat I’m also experiencing).  Until then, the tweezers, faithful weapon in my arsenal against this bristly assault, will occupy a place of honor in my medicine cabinet – right next to, in another ironic twist, my husband’s bottle of Rogaine.

Katrina said:

Too funny! I have one very stubborn chin hair that I pluck when the need arises, and I am nowhere close to menopause. Now I'm worried there may be more to deal with in the future. Thanks for that. lol 

 

Keep those tweezers handy lol :)