I was in my thirties before someone confronted me about my eyebrows.
Beginning in middle school, when my darker-haired friends began their quest for tidy eyebrows, I was relieved by the fact I had thin, mousy dark blond hair that didn't seem to accelerate growth in adolescence.
I tried to pluck my eyebrows in high school, but it hurt like crazy and seemed stupid to me. Pulling hairs out of my face, one or two at a time? And ending up with little irritated red spots where the hairs used to be? No thanks.
In my twenties, I was in denial about a whole lot of things - the least of which was my eyebrows.
And so, in my early 30s and during an unsurprisingly brief foray into cosmetic sales, a well-meaning colleague said, "you have GOT to do something about those eyebrows."
I hadn't contemplated the attractiveness or lack thereof in anyone else's eyebrows, so I assumed nobody paid attention to mine either. I did once work with a man who had scary bushy eyebrows that were so long, I suspect they were braid-able. He also had disconcertingly noticeable ear hairs that curled outward from his ear canal and lobes. Now THAT was appalling; my little stray eyebrows were Pop Warner tryouts in comparison to his Super Bowl.
So, in furtherance of my budding career in the makeup industry, I bought some tweezers and went to town. Did I mention about the little red spots? The stray wild mousy blond hairs were far less distracting, in my humble opinion.
(I lasted all of 90 days in the cosmetics biz - apparently you have to be a sociopath and compulsive liar. I couldn't bring myself to sell expensive face cream to little old ladies who were probably living off cat food so they could splurge on beauty products.)
Anyhow, it wasn't until I made it into my 40s that I discovered the relative ease and freedom of having one's eyebrows waxed.
The first time was terrible. I hadn't known what to expect, and neither did the little Vietnamese lady who dabbed hot wax on my brow bone, patted it gently, then forcefully ripped it off.
I literally shrieked "OW!!!" right in her face; she returned the favor with a surprised gasp perfumed with fish sauce.
"You want other eye?" she asked cautiously.
Well, what now? I couldn't very well go out of there with mismatched eyebrows. After all, ever since I'd learned that people (especially catty women) apparently DO pay attention to the eyebrows of others, I had a tidy-eyebrow reputation to protect. So she did the other eye - I secretly think she pulled even harder that time, but I wasn't about to let on that it hurt.
She smiled sweetly and said, "bikini too?"
Um, no. No thanks. For you people out there that do subject yourselves to such torture, I'm humbled by your courage.
