The Outliers

I love books.  Non-fiction most of all.  And I'm particularly obsessed with Malcolm Gladwell.  His writing and whether he looks more like Carrot Top or Art Garfunkel.  I can't really decide.  Although I am enamored him, this post isn't actually about him.  It's about another type of outlier altogether.

I don't remember exactly how it came up in casual conversation, but I do know it was my friend Lynn who first told me when I was in my late 30's.  The phenomenon known to 40 year old women as crazy ass chin hairs.  The thing that's so crazy is they can appear over night and they aren't even quarantined to the chin region.  You can get crazy ass chin hairs on your boobs!  Trust me.  I know.

These shall henceforth be referred to by their clinical name:  The Outliers.

And we're not talking light blonde hairs here.  We're talking full on coarse, black pubic looking hairs that can grow two inches or even longer.  I assume.  I'm not sure I know their full growth potential because I pluck immediately upon discovery after a short session of self shaming.  Am I turning into a man?  A sasquatch?  Or most likely, a male sasquatch.

I discovered my latest outliers while in the hot tub.  Looking down at the bubbles, I noticed the hideous strands blown by the jets.  The thing is, these two hairs were well out of the Pubic Triangle.  Half way between there and my hip. No man's land. Well beyond the standard deviation.  Statistically insignificant if we're talking math.  Which we're not, by the way.  It was completely significant to me.  And had to be plucked.  Immediately.  But first I'd have to find the tweezers.  And my reading glasses.  Because, although I can see the hair clearly from far away, once I have the tweezers, the detail work of determining its exact origin begins.  And that's a whole other story.

The other day in the car, I innocently looked back into the rear view mirror and got a clear view of the brow hair outliers.  That are oddly ONLY visible in the rear view mirror.  Requiring that I run to fetch my favorite pair of tweezers when I got home and then got back into the car for the sole purpose of plucking my eye brows.  In my driveway.

That's when it occurred to me.  Maybe.  Just maybe, I should increase my outlier arsenal.  And pack some tweezers and magnifying mirror in my purse for just such sasquatch emergencies.  The timing is great really.  Cause god knows I won't need the tampons soon.  I'm pretty sure that's the obnoxious message light that the testosterone keeps flashing in my face.  And everywhere else.  So I'll have more space freed up and all.  Perfect.

And menopause? I can't wait.  Cause, umm, that's gonna be awesome.