From 05/18/07: Another Hair Related Blog

May 18, 2007 - Friday
Another Hair Related Blog Category: Life
As you get older, I think that hair becomes more of an issue. Some of you may have read my previous blog related to chin hairs Once again, a hair issue has sparked my creativity. When Ray and I started dating in 1993, I was 18 and he was 19. At that time, Ray had hair on his legs, head, arms, and a small patch on his chest. No big deal. I would say in about 2000, 3 years into marriage, I began to notice that he was getting a little thin on the top of his head. He grew more chest hair, and he started to have a some hair on his back. The back hair was nothing that he could not manage himself with a razor once a month or so. He would mainly focus on it in the summer when we might go tubing or swimming with friends. As the years passed, the hair on his head decreased dramatically, he grew a lot of chest hair, and the back hair, oh the back hair. The upper torso nuisance has grown into a calamity. The once a month manscaping turned into a weekly thing. It is no longer something that he can take care of on his own. It has become a couple issue. The hair has gotten to the point that he can no longer just shave the top and be ok. Now, I have to be intimately involved in the care and grooming of my husband. I have noticed that over the past year, he has started to complain more about the hair and the fact that people at his job comment on the monkey crawling out of the top of his shirt. He frequently mentions that I need to help him manage the hair. He has begun to brush the shoulder hair into a nice 1970's Eric Estrada type do. The hair has also started to creep down the back sides of his upper arms. Now, that is especially disturbing to me. I remember in one of the towns in which I lived, maybe Stephenville, seeing a super white trash guy in his 50's who would always wear a sleeveless tshirt to the bar. He was greasy looking and looked like he smelled. He had so much fur on his shoulders and the back of his arms that we said he was wearing a sweater. That is what I imagine when I see that back-of-upper-arm hair on my sweet husband (who is not white trash.ok, maybe a little). I cannot believe that he now sports a hairy sweater vest. We have been married for 10 years now. Last week, I knew the magic was over when Ray was standing in the big garden tub of our home with me using clippers (yes, like you would use on a dog) to shave his back hair (and arm and shoulders and flanks and upper crack region). He was wearing shorts, but I had him bend over slightly, "like you would do at work, " I told him, so that I could also clip the hair that would show above his scrub pants. You know the honeymoon is over when you reflect upon your manscaping couple time.