by James Uriyu

Created on: September 22, 2010

The restaurant was a madhouse on Friday nights, but the take home money was good enough to assure my weekly ski trip, and some groceries.  I counted out the cash and coin in my waiter’s bank against my receipts.  The rest would be my tips for the evening.  I sat down in the manager’s office waiting for him to accept the bank and approve my receipts.

The manager had once been a professional tennis player, but age and his pregnant wife meant that he needed to settle down.  He had purchased the next franchise in this small restaurant chain.  His German accent was barely detectable, but his straight forward to the point mannerisms were totally Deutsche.

"Your receipts and bank are correct,” he said in a matter of fact way.  He turned and looked at me.  “You are a good looking young man, but you have to do something about your nose hair, it really detracts from your appearance.”

I looked into the mirror, and for the first time in my life, I pulled on my nose hair.  It was course, straight, and as thick as wire.  I turned my head as far as my peripheral vision allowed, and saw nostril bristles sticking out.  How had I missed this?  I imagined all those years that people had been looking at me, not me, but my nose hairs.

Skiing twice a week in winter, backpacked during the summer, I was generally fit.  I thought I looked okay, and was not affected by vanity.  Like most young men, I was sure I was attractive enough that young women would not flee screaming when they saw me.  I was sure that working tables at night, and taking college classes during the day was the reason my dating had fallen off, or was it nostril fur?

I took the plastic tweezers from my Swiss Army knife and grabbed a single black wire strand.  Drawing it taught, I counted to three and yanked. Tears flooded my eyes from the sharp pain.  The hair was a quarter of an inch long, and when I tested it against the back of my hand, it felt like a pin.  Scissors!  I had never noticed that when you look in the mirror your image moves in the opposite direction.  Positioning the scissor in my nostril was awkward, and getting it at the right angle almost impossible.  Count to three, and snip.  Tears once again flooded my eyes, and blood poured down my upper lip.  A large wad of toilet paper stopped the bleeding.

A week later, I was walking in the mall, and went into one of my favorite stores, Brookstone.  Hanging on a display was a chrome shaped missile with a small slotted brass head.  At six hundred rpm, the razor sharp internal blades painlessly sliced through any nostril forest.

Twenty years of weekly nose clipping, and I have come to realize a few things.  I can smell things a lot better.  I am more sensitive to pollen and dust, which result in many runny noses.  The worse discovery is, when I let my nose wires grow longer than a stubble, they pin prick my sensitive tissues.  At that point, the only relief to the itching is a soothing dig with my baby fingernail dig.

Thank you so much for making my aware of my nose hair, Gunther.

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