Eyebrows Are Freaky, Yo

I have a phobia and it's a phobia I've never heard anyone else talk about...

Eyebrows. They bother me. And the ones where the right eyebrow reaches across the face & touches the left eyebrow? Scares the poo outta me! I hate to see them coming at me. Some people describe them as hairy caterpillars. That's being way too nice to something that looks like it could crawl off a face & eat little children.

Seriously, I can be talking to the nicest person in the world but if she's got funky eyebrows that's all I'll notice. The sensible, not rude part of me is saying, "Don't stare. Look in her eyes. Don't look above her eyeballs." The rude part of me is saying, "You know you gotta look. Make sure they're not gonna crawl off her face & into your purse. What if one of her eyebrow hairs falls off & lands on you? You gotta look to make sure it stays on her face." So I look. And I always want to slap myself because I really know better than to scare myself.

Another person's eyebrow landing on me would send me into an all-out shallow-breathing, counter-gripping, lip-biting, itchy panic. I couldn't handle it. That's gross! It's like...it's a hair that doesn't get washed frequently. Not everyone washes their face daily. Do you have any idea the kind of crap that lands on our faces on a daily basis? Just look at someone's glasses & how dirty they are at the end of the day. Yeah. I'm not so nuts now, am I?

There's a thing that makes eyebrows not so scary looking, so since they are dirty they at least don't look like it. They're called Tweezers. They're 99 cents at the local KameApart store. You just aim it at the hairs that aren't in line with the others, and pull them out. By the root. Evict 'em. Kick 'em to the curb. Adios.

There's also waxing to get it over with quickly. But don't go to my ex-stylist to get it done (notice the ex part of that name). The last time I went to her she waxed my left eyebrow perfectly. The right one, not so much. I ended up with an apostrophe over my eyeball. When I looked in the mirror & saw that the tail was gone from my eyebrow, she was very apologetic about it, "Guess I shouldn't have had all those beers before you got here." Uh...yeah, ex-stylist.

I had to go to work like that. I told people I was saving for an eyebrow transplant because I'd been in a kitchen fire. When I went to my next (and current) stylist to see what she could do about it, she first had to wipe the tears from her eyes after laughing so hard. And then she had the other stylists come over for an example of how not to wax eyebrows. She had to show me how to use an eyebrow pencil while I waited for it to grow in. I was terrified I'd look like the old ladies in church who pluck their whole eyebrow & then draw a dark line & always look surprised or angry. I didn't want to start lining my eyebrows & have my children running away from me. (oh, wait...why didn't I want that...?)

My babies didn't have eyebrows. And it scared me. Well, not with each of them, but with my first baby. 'Cause after you have a couple babies that have nectarine heads you get used to it. I panicked and asked my Mom where my baby's eyebrows were. (There's a special kind of panic that God reserves just for first time Moms, it's enjoyable to watch when you're the seasoned Mom.) I thought they got lost or rubbed off on the way out & I'd ruined my baby forever. How was I supposed to ask my midwife to go back in there to find my baby's eyebrows? And would they be in one piece or hair by hair? And what kind of Mom would my midwife think I was when I admitted that I lost my baby's eyebrows before she was even born?

My Mom, who is so wise and knows how to calm my fears (and I'm sure was laughing on the inside as seasoned Moms often do with first time Moms) said, "She doesn't have any because she's bald. Look at her. She doesn't have any hair anywhere. She'd look pretty funny with a patch of hair in the middle of her face & nowhere else." Oh, yeah, good point.

My babies' hairlessness (new word there) changed me. What do you think I look for when I meet a new baby? Eyebrows. Some have them dark, some have them light, and a select few are like my babies and lost theirs on the way out. No worries though, my kids did each eventually grow a new set of eyebrows & they are perfectly normal...as normal as could be expected with me as their Mom.