In which I disgust even myself
/A week or two ago, I was driving with Hannah to the grocery store. We were chatting it up, mama/daughter style. She was telling me about all the weird boys at school, and I was listening, while also silently praying she would never fall in love with any of the weird boys at school, decide to marry them, and live a life of misery and regret.
Because, of course, you can totally tell in fifth grade what boys are going to turn out to be like.
We were stopped at a stoplight, and I smugly thought to myself how lucky I was, and how I was doing such a great job raising my kids, and how the universe had blessed me with such an amazing life.
Well.
Just at that moment, I felt an itch on my left elbow and reached down to scratch it.
Let me tell you. There are itches better left unscratched. There are things better left unknown.
It was as though the powers of the universe heard my contented sigh of peace and decided to mock me and make sure that pedestal I was standing on got crumbled into dust beneath my feet. When I looked down at the source of the itch at my elbow, I was instantly repulsed and disgusted. For there at my innocent (albeit slightly dry) elbow was growing a vile, sinister hair. Probably the longest, nastiest black hair in the history of mankind.
There are witches who have had warts with shorter hairs growing out of them.
It was bizarre. The natural color of the hair on top of my head is a chalky brown at best. But this hair? It was as black as Satan's dark soul. And LONG. Long enough that this hair could have its own Pinterest board with braids, styles, and prom up-dos galore.
I was horrified, embarrassed, and more than a little bit melodramatic about it.
What the frick happens to these bodies of ours? Why do the molecules of my stupid elbow cells decide to sprout long random hairs in places that hair has no business growing? I'm not even 40 yet! Is this what I'm doomed to suffer through until the grave provides me with some relief? Is it going to be on my face next? WHY??!! Why does god hate me? I have no reason to live! Look away! I'm hideous!
Okay. So maybe I exaggerate. Sometimes.
Luckily, my daughter is a bit more practical than her mama. For when we pulled up to the grocery store, and I stopped hyperventilating long enough to grab my grocery list, she remarked, with all the seriousness of an honest, sincere, and glorious fifth grader, "Make sure you add some hair clippers to your list, Mom. I think you're going to need them."
And so I will, baby girl. Yikes.
