There is a select group of Wanda’s friends, her female friends, who have nana beards long enough to make our 14-year-old pubescent grandson jealous.
There’s one on particular who I’m sure has had a nest formed among the dozen or so chin hairs, possibly not quite large enough for pigeons, but certainly broad enough to accommodate a nesting hummingbird.
Had the thinning tress been closer together, it may have formed a dreadlock. Trendy in the ’70s, not so much in your 80s as the poor dear would have it as she drops dandruff in her walker.
You’ll note that I’ve cunningly not spoken of Wanda in the same breath as her friends, for she is a picture of eternal beauty, and I’ll never argue otherwise.
Before I’m accused of throwing stones from my own accomplished house, it should be noted that the mirror doesn’t lie.
As we age, hair pops up in the most unflattering of places. I bought one of those nose clippers in an effort to clear the forage in the hope I wouldn’t scare too many visitors from the house.
Then I realised that for all my efforts to clear the outer ring of the nasal passage, a hair had emerged on the outside of my nose. Not possible I thought, so I shaved it off only to realise that when you shave new hairs, they re-emerge like a weed among a patch of perfectly-curated lawn, stronger-rooted and more stubborn than ever.
Or should that be more “stubble” than ever. See what I did there?
I asked my barber what he thought the best course of action would be, but I’m not sure he could be trusted.
You see, he’s got a beard which reaches to the depth of his nipple, and has locks he allows to swing over one side of his shaved head.
It’s like not being able to trust a skinny chef. A bearded barber doesn’t compute.
He wasn’t fazed, the barber that is. He plucked the hair from the outside of my nostril and proceeded to take a razor to my ears.
I blame the hairdresser in Greece who 10 years ago decided it would be a good idea to remove the emerging bristles from the outside of my hears. Had she never touched them, they may never have reached the tethered state they are in today.
Of course, that doesn’t account for the nasty protrusion which is coming from the hollow of my ears.
I remember an old chap at the club who shaved his face as he would when he suited up for his 9-5 job, yet had hair the length of a toothpick coming from his cheeks.
Times, they are a changin’, my friend. And it’s time to extend your shaving habits higher on your face. Any higher and he’d be scraping curls from his eyeballs.
Why is it, I ask, that hair on other parts of the body thins out. Yet, new fleece materialises from the most unflattering of places. And the most visible of places.
I’m lucky Wanda loves me. At least she says she does. If first impressions are everything, the ear, cheek and nose rug could have been a deal-breaker before she’d taken the time to know me.
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