Romance

Really, they were just eyebrows.  The eyebrows of my beloved, my husband, my sweetheart, were confounding me.  I could have gazed adoringly into those sky-blue eyes all day long...if it weren't for those eyebrows.  They haunted my dreams.  He would look completely different with new eyebrows, a little voice in the back of my head whispered.

I never noticed those stray hairs until after we'd been married a while, but once I saw them, I couldn't unsee them.  They were ten weeds on the face of perfection, perched on the No Man's Land above the nose, and they were driving me insane.  I resolved several times not to pay them any attention, but it was no use.  Those eyebrows were like a traffic accident; even with the best of intentions, my eyes would drift upward.  Eyebrow plucking is certainly not considered to be a manly art, unless said plucking is followed by the placement of a tattoo or a piercing.

They don't really cover stuff like this in the marriage manuals.  I was certain that I'd never heard any of my friends talking about male eyebrow plucking.  I recalled seeing men in barber shops with towels over their faces when I was growing up, but I could not recall a time when I'd ever seen a man in the barber shop getting his eyebrows plucked.  I wasn't about to call my dad to ask!

How could I approach this topic without ruffling any feathers?   I could take a lot of things, but getting the silent treatment at that time was a torture to be avoided.  I waffled and procrastinated for days, afraid that my topic would start an argument.  I could finally stand it no longer, and I had to say something.  I took a deep breath and made my request.

"What do you mean, you want to pluck my eyebrows?"   He was understandably nonplussed, but he was warily agreeable.  

He sat on the edge of the bathtub as I found my tweezers.   His breath fanned gently over my face as I leaned over for a better look.  I was suddenly nervous.  I'd never plucked anyone else's eyebrows before. What if I plucked too much?  What if his eyebrows ended up lopsided?  What if the tweezers fell out of my sweaty hands and punctured an eyeball and he had to wear an eyepatch?   Stop it, I told myself firmly.  I moved the trembling tweezers into position, grasped at a hair, and ripped the first offending hair out quickly.

"OWW!!!"   Larry leaped to his feet, his eye covered by his hands.  He angrily stepped to the mirror to survey the damage.  "ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME???"

"Don't be silly, sweetie," I giggled nervously,  "Your life insurance policy hasn't activated yet." 

We looked at each other, and started to laugh.   My nerves melted away as he sat back down so I could finish pulling those last nine hairs.



WOE Prompt: It’s time for a change in outward appearance, be it a character, yourself, or someone in your life. write about a makeover of your choice (hair, clothes, makeup, facial hair for the menfolk), fictional or memoir/creative non-fiction. Let’s think about how physical appearance changes can affect the inner landscape.  This is nonfiction, and likely stretches the definition of a makeover, but it's all I've got today. The brain does not run well on migraines and lack of sleep.