The Best Little Chin Hair Post on the Prairie

The older you get it seems hair seems to grow in the wrong spot, and getting rid of chin hair has now become an important daily ritual for me. I have become so obsessed with unneeded body hair that I should be committed. In fact I have told my husband many times that if I should fall ill and unconscious that I had better not wake up and see long transient hairs on my face.


The first time I noticed strange hair docking on my “port” was when I drove to Kingston, Ontario with my youngest son Perry. I caught him looking at me from the corner of my eye and I asked him what was wrong. He said,


“Mum, do you know you have a long hair growing under your chin?”

I did not believe him and told him to pull it out as a joke. He reached over, tugged, and showed me a long albino hair that I swear measured at least 5 inches in length. I was aghast and then quickly asked him if there were any more. He laughed and told me that in the sunlight I looked like I needed a really good shave.

Since when did my face start resembling a peach? Should I suddenly be sold along with veggies on a roadside stand or become part of a cobbler? Upset with my peach fuzz status I started to pluck like a maniac and refused to call them “stray eyebrows” as I once did.

The radical hairs infuriate me so much I now glare in the bathroom mirror every morning as they seem to grow overnight at warp speed.  I keep not one, but two pairs of tweezers by the bathroom sink and if I spot even the smallest of growths I am at immediate war with them. If I lost a pair of tweezers I think I would go completely ballistic and have been known to liberate the odd tweezer from a bathroom not belonging to me. It is simply about having the perfect tool to accomplish the deed.


My grandmother used to have two chin hairs that grew for months until she plucked them just before Christmas.  Sometimes at dinner I would have a hard time concentrating on small talk as I could not help watching the progress of these two particular black hairs. They had a mind of their own and would swirl this way or that depending on the kitchen temperature.


First bright sunny day in December Mary Louise Deller Knight would go outside and set my grandfather’s round shaving mirror on top of an overturned garbage pail. There in full sunlight with Christmas carols blasting from the kitchen radio she would pluck them out. I learned from her that only a place that allows full sunlight will provide the true horror of what’s really growing on your face.


As I age hair is disappearing and only three lone hairs have sprouted on my legs this year. Thankfully, my armpit hair no longer grows at ‘hippie speed’ and I am missing small patches on other places.

My new hobby seems to be gazing intensely at people in grocery stores that have chin hairs growing so long they could thread a needle with them. Today I took the bull by his chinny chin chin and finally made my husband sign a pledge in writing to pluck my chin hairs if I am ever in a coma. Glancing in the mirror I silently wondered how many chin hairs it would take to finally have to resort to using the men’s washroom. Tomorrow is another day!