by Jennifer Geitenbeek

Created on: October 24, 2010

We all get them, eventually. I know this, everyone does and yet it came as a big surprise to find that one morning after my shower ritual I discovered I had nose hairs! I am lucky, I am blessed. Three kids and still a trim figure, my skin is mostly clear, my hair is healthy and there is still a sparkle in my eyes, and yet now I have nose hairs staring me in the face. Nose hairs are like ear hairs, they belong on grey old men that are balding on top. They are balding because their body is confused about where hair must grow, hence the ear and nose hair. I am not old, nor am I grey, balding or male.

Now that the shock has abated a little, now I must decide what to do with them. After watching Ice Age and seeing Manny go through what looked to be tremendous discomfort when the baby pulled out a handful of nose hairs, I was not looking forward to ridding myself of these little ticklers. Throwing all etiquette out the window I tried to push them out of sight with my finger. These stubborn little things just sprang right back proudly standing to attention and mocking my paltry finger. First idea out the window, I decided to try and snip them out with a tiny pair of scissors. I'm sure that this works just fine when you know what you are doing, I however, did not know what I was doing, I only thought I did. So, standing up nice and straight with my head tilted ever so slightly back, in front of the mirror I try to snip these little hairs. My hand starts to shake but I am not fazed. It will settle as I get closer to the actual nose......wont it? Obviously not. Did you know that if you cut the inside of your nose with a little pair of scissors being held with a shaky hand that you can actually bleed quite a bit? It did have one side effect that I was a little grateful of at the time, and that was the now I was concentrating so hard on the blood pouring from my nostril that I was no longer worried about my nose hairs.

Holding my nose so I don't drop blood everywhere I dash for the lounge room. The last place I saw a box of tissues, scanning the room I finally find them hidden under a newspaper that is about 4 months old. I dive my hand in only to find that the box is empty. Off to the kitchen, cursing under my breath and still cradling my nose, I find another box, also empty. Oh dear, next stop is the toilet, I know that there is toilet paper, that will do. At first I am a bit over-enthusiastic with the toilet paper. It is only a small nostril so a big wadding handful is a little bit overboard. Oh well, I'll stuff a little up there and put the rest in my pocket. After the last attempt I decided to abandon the scissors in favour of my fingernails. Leaving the bleeding nostril alone I attack the other. Getting my fingertips on the little buggers proves harder than first thought. Eventually I succeeded, grasping the hairs between firmly between thumb and forefinger I give an almighty yank................sweet mother of god that hurt! My eyes are watering, my nose is dripping and the other nostril is bleeding again, my ears are ringing and I can't seem to see straight. When I regain my composure I take a tentative look at the hairs between my fingertips. I was wrong, it was only 1 hair! All that pain for one hair. Looking at my nostrils I now see not one or two but a whole bunch of hairs that have mysteriously appeared. In defence perhaps? Well, I learned my lesson well. I have now taken to parting and styling my nose hair rather than pulling it out. Much more comfortable.

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