Brow Down Before the Hair you Serve

* Note: The photo above is not me - it's a random photo I found...

When I turned 30, things started changing. Everyone who knows me knows that I am, as Depressionista puts it, "militant about personal hygiene." I MUST have a shower daily and I have a full regimen of cleanliness. I am constantly washing my hands until they bleed in the winter from being so dry.

I'm a bit obsessed with eyebrow plucking, too. When I was like 12, I was so freaked out about the possibility that I might have a uni-brow that I shaved between my eyebrows, which was really not a good idea, and I eventually moved to plucking, which has been an obsession/hobby ever since. Several months ago, I issued a self-moratorium on eyebrow plucking because I saw a photo of myself and thought my brows were looking a little weird. Sometimes I get carried away with hair removal, I can't help it. I think they grew back enough to look somewhat normal, and now I'm trying to pluck less often (and not go too far when I do).

It seems that the age of 30 is the magic age when your body starts changing. Things that never ached before start aching. And hair starts sprouting forth from strange places - or at strange lengths - or more gray.

I preface this post by saying all that, because I want you to know I experience the strange hairs of growing older, too.

So here's a bizarre phenomenon: I often see older guys with the super long eyebrow hair. You know what I'm talking about? There is that one rogue hair that seems to have a mind of its own. This rebel hair starts out innocent enough, saying to its compatriots, "I've had enough of just growing a certain length and then living a stagnant, apathetic existence. I'm going to be a non-conformist!"

Soon, it is long and unwieldy, and jutting forth obviously from its community of hair. My husband gets these sometimes and, bless his heart, he allows me to pluck them because they make me insane. My dad also gets these, more and more as he gets older.

But for some people, the rebel hair sets an example the other hairs can't help but follow. The rebel hair is such a charismatic leader that the other hairs start taking notice and soon you have a hair insurgency on your hands.

You've seen a victim of this. It's the older guy that has a bunch of super long eyebrow hairs, so long and disorderly and dangling like icicles over his eyes - you wonder how he can see through this shrubbery. The hair insurgency often spreads from there, and soon hair is springing forth from both inside and outside the ears, from the end of his nose, and probably many other places where hair has never before been so bold.

I recently had one of those eyebrow hairs. It was a secret agent hair, carefully concealing its identity by blending into the rest of the eyebrow. When I finally plucked it from its entrenchment, it was literally a good inch long. I was mortified by this discovery, but not that surprised. Occasionally, I will find a crazy long hair growing out of my forehead, or ear area, or cheek. I've also recently started finding a very course hair growing from the tip of my nose, which is generally plucked as soon as I feel it, before anyone can see it. It's usually a blond hair, but, for some reason, is not the usual soft downy hair.

What I always wonder is, at what point do you stop caring and give in to the hair regime that is taking over your body? At what point do you stop trying to pluck and groom and just let the hair rebellion take over, spreading anarchy across your body?

Also, its very distracting - have you ever tried to talk to someone with the crazy brows? You just can't stop staring at that eyebrow hair (or all the eyebrow hairs) and thinking to yourself, "Can't he feel that poking him in the eye?!?!"

My husband occasionally finds a super-long hair growing from inside his nose, which he sometimes leaves for me on the bathroom sink, usually resulting in dry heaves from me and a lot of yelling and foul language.

I started looking for photos of this phenomenon, and came across a story about the guy who holds the Guiness World Record for longest eyebrow hair. The photo is here at the right.

I have a feeling there will be many more hair stories to come...