Saturday, July 14, 2007

Hair and Age - A Complicated Relationship

I am getting old. I am becoming my dad.

There are many ways visually that tell me that I am getting old. The wrinkles around my eyes, the increasing softness of my muscles, the graying of my temples and the receding of my hairline.

The last two are of special interest. How a person's hair starts reflecting one's advancing age.
Now, I am perfectly comfortable with my hair turning gray. I am also ok with the hairline sliding back. In fact, I am hoping the gray helps create the illusion that I have wisdom and am distinguished. Note the bolding is intentional.

What my hair is doing that I have a problem with has been occurring over the last couple of years in increasing frequency. I have issues with....
  1. The extra long and overly abundant nose hairs
  2. The bizarre hairs in the ear and worse, on the ear
I now have additional tasks in my daily morning regimen...I make sure no nose hairs are poking out, and no ear hairs are growing both at the entrance of my ears as well as along the outer portion of the ears. For some odd reason, both of these kinds of hair seem to grow larger and thicker than most hair follicles. Seems like the human equivalent of weeds in a garden.

It has gotten so bad that I recently purchased a special clipper for this type of hair. The act of purchasing the clippers was much like my occasional purchase of Mrs. WHW's "special monthly stuff". You men know the routine....you get a complete description of the product and of its packaging from the Mrs. After arriving at the Wal-mart farthest from where you live, you then go down THAT aisle a couple times noting exactly where the product you want is located. Next, when no one except other men are in the aisle, you go quickly by the product raking it off the shelf into your cart in one swift motion. Then you put a box of Honeycombs over the product...using Honeycombs because of its size. Finally, you go to any available self-check register. Yes, I have issues.

Anyway, as I stood in front of the mirror the other day I found myself clipping inside my nose and around my ear. For me, this proved to be incredibly traumatic. What I saw in the mirror was an adult WHW....a Mr. WHW, not a cool, slightly aging dude WHW. I am hoping this post helps me exercise some of the demons this act
left behind.

My question is, why is it that, as I age, my hair gets thinner on my head, yet thicker in places that should never have thick hair? Is it one of life's cruel jokes? If it is, I am here to say it isn't funny.

6 comments:

Caffeinated Librarian said...

Your kind of coolness will not lessen with age, dude. In fact it will probably increase since the older you get the more you will probably not care what folks think and then you'll let it all hang out even more than you do now.

As long as that means we don't get even MORE potty stories than we get now (*grin*), I think that's all to the good.

Anonymous said...

Tell me about it!! My transformation began around 10 years ago. It started out slowly until one day I looked in the mirror and gasped, "DAD!!!" My 'special hair' trimmer gave up the ghost 3 days ago, probably from overuse, and if I don't purchase a new one soon things will start getting... Hairy!

Have a great Sunday

bwmson said...

Thanks CL. I hope you are right.

RU, looks like it hasn't affecgted your coolness :)

Guinevere said...

M has the same issues. He employees me to trim the ear hair since he can't see it. He trims the internal nose hairs himself, but enlists our daughter's help to pluck the external nose hairs that are growing like weeds in a garden (good analogy) on the end of his nose. And he's got quite a schnauz, so that's a lot of work.

Oh, and he's getting thin on top...with some gray.

I don't understand it either, but I think he's still cool.

And so are you! :o)

Take care and thanks for the prayers!!!

weimie said...

I laughed out loud at your description of purchasing the wife's "monthly products", just as a coworker passed by. She stopped to see what was funny so I read that part to her... I said, "Hmm, D never minded picking up that kind of stuff for me" She said, "Yeah, b/c he probably raked the package into the cart and covered them with Honeycombs!"

lol... now, I'm going to have to ask him if he did that!

The hair is an interesting thing, but ... take comfort in the fact that - although you have unwanted hairs popping up in odd places - that greying at the temples is extremely handsome and does inspire a distinguished look in men, whereas us women just get....old looking. All wrinkly and saggy. My husband and I have this discussion often - he looks better with age, I love his grey hair... and me? just looking old. Blecht... :o(

Chris said...

Thinking of you purchasing the monthly items makes me think of Homer trying to buy illegal fireworks and bundling these items in with his purchase. Speaking of which, we need to get the boys together to see The Simpsons Movie...

And I, too, hate the thicker/stronger ear and nose hair. Very similar to nylon.

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