Who’s my snookie wookie?

I’ve always been blessed in the tress department. During my teens, Dad would marvel at the abundant strands he’d find hanging from light fittings, clogging drains, covering the carpet. It didn’t matter how many I shed, I always had plenty to spare.

Unfortunately, as I’ve grown older, I’ve started growing strands in other places. Wrong places. Frida Kahlo places. And worse. The problem with these sturdy new hairs is how fast they grow. One minute I’m smooth as a baby’s bottom, the next I’m a human cactus with spikey bits jutting in all directions.

I’m a bit vague, so I frequently forget to check for stray hairs before leaving the house. I’ll be chatting to someone in the school playground and feel something swaying in the breeze. Egads, the shame! Even though they probably haven’t even noticed. (She kids herself. Those Witchy Poo chin ones stand out like dog’s balls.)

I hide my hairy situation from Husband, despite having no compunction about doing other private stuff in his presence, like weeing while he’s cleaning his teeth. I mean, stray hairs aren’t exactly sexy, are they? Unless you’re dating Diego Rivera.

Actually, weeing while your partner’s in the bathroom isn’t that hot either, now I come to think about it*. It’s funny the lines we draw for ourselves.

Sometimes I’ll be lying in bed and feel something fluttering on my face. Occasionally it’s a cockroach. Argh. Argh. Argh. But usually it’s another bloody hair. I’ll yank at it in the dark, using my fingernails as a crude pair of tweezers. Husband will crossly wonder why the bed is reverberating and hiss: “What the hell are you doing???” I’ll be like, “ooooh, nothing, nothing.”

Fortunately I’ve learned from an ex-colleague how NOT to deal with hairy situations. She was driving to an interview when she noticed a whisker poking out of her face. She didn’t have any tweezers, so she got a cigarette lighter out of her glove box and burnt it off. She noticed a funny smell in the car and checked her face in the rear-vision mirror, only to discover she’d melted her false eyelashes into a spider-like mass. Ooops.

I tried waxing once. But I couldn’t handle the spotty rash afterwards, not to mention the stubble a few weeks later. If I had the dosh, I might consider that laser hair removal business, but I’ve heard it’s pretty ouchy. So I’ll just have to train myself to check automatically for hairs every night, the same way I trained myself to floss. Such a farking bore.

Geez I hate getting old. The whiskers, the wrinkles, the aches, the regrets. And I still get pimples. Cruel.

Tell me: what’s your (least) favourite part about ageing?