Mustaches and Beards are not funny.

Here is something I have to say about this menopause shit.
And yes that is how it should be phrased, Menopause Shit.
Capital letters and all.

Shortly after 40 I no longer had arms long enough to read.
While reading a recipe I realized if the book was across the room I could tell the difference between 6 eggs or 8.

As I was reading the newspaper I cursed the Washington Post for using much smaller font these days. I couldn’t understand if this was a cost saving measure to save the newspaper or was Rick correct and I needed to think about seeing an eye doctor?

I had to get the dreaded “reading glasses” a.k.a bifocals. 

Then on a work related trip I was using that magnifying mirror in the hotel to put on my make up and noticed things I wasn’t seeing before.
Oh dear Lord this was not pretty.
Why wasn’t anyone saying anything to me? Did my husband ever even look at me?

Upon my return from said trip I bought one of those magnifying mirrors.
10x - I wasn't going to be missing a damn thing.

I could now see to put on makeup and not end up looking like a tranny.
I could see those eyebrows to pluck in between waxing visits.
But then menopause began to rear it’s ugly head a bit more.
I began noticing hair. Oh no not on my head. No a hair on my chinny chin chin.

As I was moisturizing one evening, I looked in that magnifying mirror to look at my eyes as I put on my eye cream. I gasped, apparently loudly, because Rick asked if I was okay.
No, I am not okay!
I see a very dark long hair dangling there beneath my chin towards my throat.
C’mon where the hell did this come from? A stealth hair!
Did it just come out of that follicle full grown and long?
I know for sure I didn't see it yesterday.
It wasn’t there this morning when I put on my makeup, how could I have missed this baby?
It seems impossible.  

I was now reliving my day. Who did I come in contact with?
Did the butcher see that hair?
Was the check out girl at the drugstore laughing hysterically as I left her counter?
Were small children pointing at me and asking Mommy why that lady has a hair on her chin? And for the love of all things why the hell didn’t Rick see this thing?
It was so long I could put hair beads on it.
They could see this from the damn shuttle orbiting the earth.

I plucked that thing so fast and began the daily ritual of looking in that mirror very carefully for unwanted stray hairs. This is now what the menopausal shit phase has come to.
I do not understand how it wasn’t there on Tuesday night when I went to bed and moisturized and did my check. But this morning it was LONG and there.
So how does that happen?  Not there – There and Long.

And if that all isn’t bad enough the sneaky little shit is a mover.
Never in the same place, oh no that would make it all too easy for the bifocaled miserable old crone to find it and remove it promptly. Chin, neck, the dreaded above the lip area.

In my Italian family we have a joke which I have heard over the years from others and I would laugh and laugh…thinking of course of a Grandma or an Aunt.
To me it was very funny but what did I know I was young and living in a glorious world of no unwanted hair.
“Why do Italian men grow mustaches?
"To look like their mothers!”

Now that joke is no longer funny to me.