Marie Taylor, Ink

“But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” St. Matthew

My tongue flicks the corner of my mouth and a tingling prickle ensues. What’s this! Another lick alerts my ever-attentive tongue to the presence of an intruder. I dispatch an exploratory finger to the site.

Damn! The tongue knows; the tongue never lies. It is the tickling prickle of a wild whisker in the corner of my mouth. When did this happen? There certainly wasn’t anything there last night, or this morning, or even an hour ago!

I rush to the bathroom, pull out the magnifying mirror that shows me things no woman should have to contemplate – crow’s feet, enlarged pores, sagging chins and the ever-elusive wild whisker.

Yes, there it is, lurking in the corner of my mouth, curling along the crease that is euphemistically called a laugh line, only nobody’s laughing now. Long, black, and as mean-looking as Lee Van Cleef without the cigar. My tongue tentatively explores its length while I rummage through the vanity drawer and pull out my tweezers.

I turn the make-up lights to their highest wattage. I peer through my bifocals and down my nose, but I am too far away to see clearly. I take off my glasses and re-peer, but now I am too close. Although my focus is blurry, my resolve is unflagging. I pounce!

I hold the tweezers up to the light and view the now vanquished whisker. A dark and menacing energy seems to emanate from its glistening length. My God! That sucker is at least an inch long! How did it grow so fast? Is it the steroids I’m taking for the arthritis?

Alarmed that this whisker may be a portent of things to come, I launch an intensive investigation for other invaders. I purse my lips, push my cheeks this way and that, then check both double chins. All clear for now, I sigh, return to my desk and ponder.

What’s up with hair as we get older? Once the essence of come-hither magic, hair has become unattractive, undisciplined and, in particular, migratory. It disappears from where it is supposed to be, and has been for seventy plus years, give or take a decade, and then turns up unexpectedly, where it should not be and never has been before!

Seemingly overnight, these crazed hairs pull up stakes and migrate to chins and cheeks, noses and ears, and then grow one, two, or three inches while we unsuspectingly frolic in dreamland.

Meanwhile, eyebrows that once would have made Frida Kahlo gnash her teeth in envy, I now have to draw on with a pencil. The once-smooth, youthful cheeks are now covered in a soft down. More eyeliner and less mascara are needed. And the less said about receding hairlines the better.

Perhaps a behavioral study should be undertaken to evaluate the correlation between aging and wild hairs. I would not be surprised to learn there is a subtle connection to the phases of the moon, or a greater frequency of migration in months without an ‘r.’ Will evidence point to a conspiracy targeting Ladies of a Certain Age or the Red Hat Society?

Is there a Ripley’s Believe It or Not category addressing wild hair behavior? If not, perhaps there should be.