Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin

There’s a mole on my chin. Not the dark, beauty-mark kind of mole, but a flesh-colored bump that’s been there for as long as I can remember. I’m so used to it I can look in the mirror to put on makeup and never even see it.

And yet it drives me crazy.

I don’t remember when it happened, but at some point a few years back, little hairs began to sprout from that mole. Although my feminine ego demands the use of the word “hairs,” “whiskers” would probably be more accurate: They’re as stiff as broom straws.

I’m vigilant about removing each hair as soon as I find it, but the mole is big enough that two or three hairs can grow on it at the same time. And they grow fast. I pluck one out and another one pops up a millimeter away. It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole, only with tweezers.

Plucking those little bristles isn’t easy. It’s hard to get a good grip on them. Even when I do, they do not turn loose willingly.

I hate those hairs. I hate them so much that in my mind each one of them has its own malicious personality. When I catch one in my tweezers, I imagine it as a tiny creature burrowed deep inside a pore, it’s arms and legs stretched out across the doorway, hanging on with all its might while I pull on its ugly head.

Ha! Got the little bastard.