hair today - gone tomorrow by judi sadowsky

being a woman of a certain age, i have grown used to the fact that i am dry in places i used to be wet and wet in places that once were dry, but this hair thing is a whole different story.

it seems like only yesterday that i had had a monthly waxing appointment. in one day, i could count on olga to rip out the unsightly hairs on my upper lip, eyebrows, underarms, legs and bikini line. now, there is not a stray hair to be found in any of those areas. not that i would ever, in this life time, wear a bikini again, but no one ever told me that you can actually go bald down there.

the strange thing is that while all the usual places i used to grow hair are bare, suddenly hair is sprouting up in places where hair just does not belong. at the gym the other day i kept swatting at an itchy spot on the back of my thigh. finally, after a number of times of trying to ascertain what was causing the itch, my fingers grasped on to a stray hair that was growing mid thigh. i grabbed it and pulled. it was six inches long. when had it gotten there and how could it have grown so long without my noticing it? long thigh hairs, bad enough, but what is the deal with big toe hair? the last few times i have gone for a pedicure, my vietnamese manicurist bambi (all the manicurists in my salon pick what they think are american sounding names) has started to threaten me that she is going to charge me for a pedicure and a trim.

embarrassing enough, but not as embarrassing as those dark black hairs that have started to sprout on my chin. i suddenly realized that when the wolf in little red riding hood says "let me in, let me in by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin" he must have been imitating grandma who he had so recently eaten. now i know what old age is and now i know why old women are so often cranky. they are dried up, soaking wet, hairless, old hairy things. i just wish that our creator, in his/her infinite wisdom, had figured out a better system that was just a little bit less messy and a lot more dignified.