If personal information makes you squeamish, then please move on to something else.

There was a time in my life when I firmly believed that whiskers occurred on cats and guys who didn’t care to shave. One of the blessings of being female was fine, colorless facial hair which could just be ignored.

Let me tell you, the above is total and complete lie. It might be true for women prior to that wonderful change of life scientifically referred to as menopause. But afterwards? Not so much. For the first few years of my 50s I saw the occasional bristle which I promptly plucked out with a tweezers and otherwise forgot about.

Sometime in my 60s they turned white and just about as flexible as a boar bristle. One of the few positive things I can report about chemo is that they vanished, totally and completely. Now, I am not talking serious mustache or beard, just a few hairs sprouting here and there at random which actually was more aggravating. No way to predict where the next dastardly thing was going to show up, nor in what direction it would point.

Oh, I forgot to mention that little annoyance dropped on top of all the other irritation, did I? These suckers grew in random directions and seemed to manifest overnight complete with a curl on the end. The only embarrassment that I think is equivalent is that lovely time in late puberty where major, painful zits could sprout the morning of anything critical providing both distraction and a wish to vanish from the face of the earth.

So here I am at the cranky age of 68 with the old lady equivalent of zits. As various of my off-spring would say – it is NOT fair…..