I have a white hair.

One single white hair.

It mocks me. It taunts me. It grows in on the right side of my part, dead center. I pluck it and it returns, without fail, like a stubborn telephone salesman that won't stop calling as I sit down for dinner. My one white hair stands straight up while it starts to grow in, highlighting to the world that I have one angry white hair. I am debating coloring it in with a black whiteboard marker, but I am not sure if its time for that or not. If my white hair calls in its buddies for a keg party on my head, Miss Clairol will become my new best friend, along with Georges of Beef and his after-dinner buddy Jack Daniels. I will not have black hair streaked with white.

The Elvira look is so 1980's.

I am petrified of getting old.

Since the age of 22 I have been slathering my face and undereyes, twice a day, in wrinkle cream. I will not have wrinkles too soon. I cannot have wrinkles too soon. If they start to come in I will start bathing in anti-wrinkle cream. You will be able to twist my arm like a washcloth and watch anti-oxidants ooze out of it, twinkling the pavement with their radioactive goodness. You will be able to part the Retinol like rivers on my youthful looking flesh. I will wear a neck brace slathered in eucalytptus and lavender to keep the skin from wobbling in any way shape or form on my neck and to ensure no one ever mistakes my neck for an elephant leg (Hey-did you see that head on top of that elephant leg? How'd that get there? Weird.). Barring that, I will take up that weird Countess' ritual and start bathing in the blood of my servants as it makes my skin more youthful.

I just need to get some servants first.

I'm not vain. Just terrified of looking too old too soon.

There are no wrinkles so far. So far I have the one white hair. The one white hair and still smooth skin.

And then yesterday had to happen, as yesterdays do.

I was standing naked in the bathroom perusing my minge (you know. As one does). My minge needs a bit of work, as Angus and I have been changing the shape. We had a star shaved into it for a very long time, and then we decided to change the shape just after Christmas. He laid me-giggling-on the bed and got the new shape we would use, a nice spiffy diamond. As he shaved me it became apparent that my resistant beaver hair was not yet receptive to a new shape. It fought back. It dug its heels in. It wanted traditional.

We had to scrap the shape and my Michelangelo had to clear his canvas. Completely.

So now the canvas is beginning to grow in again, and I have to be vigilant in catching in-grown hairs (which I actually kind of enjoy-I feel like a vindicator, a liberator of wronged pubes faced with a lifetime of not being exposed to open air). I suppose I could just get waxed, but what fun is that? Isn't it better to lay down, splayed out like a lamb dinner, and let the man of your dreams spend ages attending to you?

Yeah. I think so too.

So I was perusing the in-growns, when I saw it.

It. You know. It. Similar to the horror of the novel by the same name.

There, nestled amongst the sleeping other black pubic hair, was a white one.

A white pubic hair.

I had a white pube.

Complete mental breakdown in 5...4...3...2....

"Ohmigod!" I shrieked. "Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Oh-my-fucking-God! I have a white pubic hair! I've been invaded! This is significant! I am not emotionally mature enough to handle this yet!"

No one was home at the time, which was a relief, as talking to myself would only have served to enforce the theory that I am indeed old, and am indeed going senile. I had to sit on the edge of the tub and check out the area, in case the pube had branched out and infected the surrounding area. Contamination measures would need to be set up. Hasmat suits gotten out of storage.

Nearly weeping, I got out my tweezers. My minge would NOT be a home for wayward white hairs. Take that "For Rent" sign down! I will only have black pubic hairs living here, I am a pubist! This couldn't happen. It couldn't be happening to me. I know my 31st birthday is 3 months away, but I cannot have white pubic hair. Not even old people get white pubic hair-I know. I watched "Something's Gotta' Give".

I grasped the pubic hair gently, worried that breaking it could cause pollen from the white pube to spread like a fine dust around my beaver, causing spores of other white pubic hairs to grow. I wondered if a weed whacker would be better here. Or electrolysis. I'm sure I could wire up a home version of it. After all, I have a toaster.

I pull the hair out, too stressed out about the whiteness of it to care about the pain. I look at it, examining the tear shaped root of it. It makes me want to weep. I think of it, staring Angus in the face as he gets me ready for my next shave.

"Honey, what is this?" he will ask, the electric beard trimmer in one hand and the vacuum cleaner in the other.

"It's...sob..." (and I will say the sob with great efficacy. I will sound like a soap opera heroine dying of hand cancer. I will be believable as I choke out my anguish) "it's a white pubic hair."

"No!" Angus will scream and gasp. "My tragic beautiful girlfriend! How can this be? Where did it all go wrong? Oh the humanity!" This he will say after flinging the shaver on the floor, grasping a handful of his lovely brown hair.

"Don't stare directly at it, darling!" I will cry. "It's...too horrible!" Together we will sob in fear.

I take the offensive material to the sink, to the light by the window. I check it out in detail, taking in the little tag on the end that is full of my DNA (I watch CSI!) I examine it in the light of the window and see...it's not white. It's blond.

Blond.

I check it 6 times before I am convinced. I flush it down the sink in order to make myself stop staring at it as it's conceivable I will spend the entire day checking it to make sure it's not white, and that's a little too fucked up, even for me. The pube was blond, not white. I wasn't being delusional.

When Angus comes home, I sit on the stairs. I shakily tell him of the bullet I nearly missed. I tell him it was nearly a breakdown in our house.

He can't see the problem. "You have dark hair. You're bound to go gray faster. It's not a problem."

Easy for him to say. According to the fine sword of society, men get "distinguished" with age. Women just get old.

White pube eliminated, I am calmer. Alert and combing through my remaining hedge on a daily basis, but calmer. Dilligence, after all. One must be dilligent.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 06:49 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
Post contains 1255 words, total size 7 kb.

1 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! (Not for your plight, but for all the infinite quotable bits you have in this post!) Darling... at least yours is blond. I have a DEFINITE grey skunk stripe at the back of my head. The hairdresser uncovered it a few months ago as she parted my hair whilst blowdrying it. I have been traumatised ever since...

Posted by: redsaid at January 12, 2005 08:28 AM (WUaBw)

2 Don't go, that is DO NOT go the Samantha route if you decide to tend to that errant white hair. And think of me...my natural hair color is the same as my dad's beard color. When he started to go gray there, it looked greenish from a distance. It's not going to be fun when I get older :/

Posted by: Kate at January 12, 2005 09:08 AM (3OL4N)

3 I've been finding grey hair in my beard. Initially it was just one, but it seems to have invited some friends over. I haven't decided what to do about it yet.

Posted by: Easy at January 12, 2005 01:17 PM (VyZed)

4 I actually haven't minded the white/gray hairs I've been getting since I was 21. But last fall I found a white eyebrow hair. I analysed it carefully but it was white white white. Yeah, that freaked me out. I think a white pube would freak me out too...

Posted by: martha at January 12, 2005 01:22 PM (5HJ2h)

5 I bet Angus already saw that hair and didn't even think twice about it. And I'd much rather have gray hair than no hair. The grass is always greener... Old is good. We have to reverse this 1960's mentality of worshipping youth. It's nice to stay in shape and feel young, but we should revel in our maturity not fight it. Solomon (the king, not yours truly) said, "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding." Better a wiser older person than an unwise younger one. We should be thrilled with the wisdom age brings not worry about the minor physiological changes it causes.

Posted by: Solomon at January 12, 2005 01:52 PM (k1sTy)

6 Do not go gentle into that good night.

Posted by: Kyle at January 12, 2005 02:12 PM (blNMI)

7 I LOVE YOU, I needed to smile today in my dark dreary griselle gray, and you- you made me. And for the record, Id love you even if you had a white Pube

Posted by: stinkerbell at January 12, 2005 02:15 PM (m18uI)

8 The hair on top of my head has been turning grey/white for the past 10 years. No big deal to me, but my wife keeps trying to get me to colour it. I'm pretty sure none of my pubes have started to turn colour yet. what really freaked me out was when I found a white nose hair.

Posted by: imabug at January 12, 2005 02:30 PM (VzyPX)

9 Haha. You and the meester are kindred with your clean slates. )

Posted by: sporty at January 12, 2005 03:13 PM (NsnoE)

10 Good Lord, you are hilarious. Jeez, now I'm gonna have to be dilligent and vigilant. Thanks for the smile.

Posted by: Marie at January 12, 2005 03:34 PM (PQxWr)

11 I totaly freaked when I found my first gray. I had the same 4 grays for years. I think I got them at about 30. Got used to them growing back evey time I plucked them. I have been messing with the color of my hair for years now, so they really didn't show up much anyway. Well, I have been trying to give my hair a break for a few months now. The shock and horror to find I have a few more than four now! I am a mess, and now I am going to have to check the other area now that I have read this post! Hum, I wonder if it would burn to color that area as well? Naw, I can't be that vain, can I? LOL.

Posted by: justme at January 12, 2005 06:54 PM (Tzk9n)

12 If it helps, I knew a woman in her early 20s who had a goodly amount of grey in her dark hair. And it was the Hottest Thing Ever. A bit of grey really won't hurt you. Honest. When Angus tells you it's fine, he's not kidding.

Posted by: Sigivald at January 12, 2005 09:05 PM (4JnZM)

13 Yeah, charming gray hairs . . . at my first I panicked, then I plucked, and oh Jesus, am I glad I'm not inspecting, uh, the hedge on a regular basis, because at this point I simply don't want to know. It's to the point now where plucking could easily become a full-time endeavor, so time to hit the bottle . . . of Clairol. I'm furious enough to be getting a couple in my eyebrows. My eyebrows, my only feature that's lovely by nature, not by Lancome! It's just tragic. No one likes it. But eventually, I think, most of us just say "oh, fuck it." Gray hairs do beat being dead, after all.

Posted by: ilyka at January 14, 2005 01:10 AM (8bvWZ)

14 HAHAHAHA! I knew it would be blond even before I read it! The same thing happened to me. :-) Let's see, just FYI, my grandmother (a striking woman, btw) turned completely silver grey at about 25. Like Steve Martin, you could say. But she looked fabulous! As far as getting older and fearing it...join the club. I go through the same fears and they are mostly surrounding Dan. I love being attractive for him. Yes, I love looking good for myself but I am also proud when other men look at me and know that Dan sees them doing that and he is not-so-secretly smug that he owns me while they do not. It's such a thrill for me. But one day, that will fade. And they won't look covetously at me any more. And I fear that more than death sometimes. For my own ego, yes, but also because I'm so afraid it will diminish me in Dan's eyes. This is probably our greatest issue as a couple. As he tries everything in his power to convince me that he will think I'm beautiful to the ends of our lives together while I perversely resist that notion, so afraid he'll look at me one day and see the reality and wonder who this old hag is he married. I hate our society for creating this Only Youth is Beautiful message for women. I've fought this message all my life but in vain. I'm surely caught in it's snare and I'll never entirely escape. Sucks. It sucks. But know this, Helen. Getting older is the greatest thing in the world, if we can only accept the physical changes. For instance, I no longer suffer from many of the trials that used to trouble me. I see things differently now, I see so many things *clearly* that I never used to be able to see at all and as I approach 50 (HORRORS! ;-), I enjoy each year even more. I see more, I know more, I'm more at peace, wiser (hopefully), better able to help others, better able to help *myself*. Yes, the physical part slowly changes, but I swear to you, if God held out to me the ability to take my youthful body of 22 back and lose this clear knowledge or keep what I've learned and suffer the physical aging, I would choose to keep my knowledge and age. Yes, even with all my fears over it. It is very powerful, getting older. You'll see...you'll bless those white/grey/blond hairs one day because they will stand for your serene happiness and wisdom. :-)

Posted by: Amber at January 14, 2005 04:50 PM (zQE5D)

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