Goldberg: Chin music

By Tod Goldberg

I like to believe I'm fairly understanding of people's hygienic choices. As a large-nosed person, I'm aware that there are days when I've not inspected myself closely enough before leaving home and learn later that tufts of black hair have sprouted from me like a party favor. It's mildly embarrassing upon initial discovery, but no more so than the day I realized I'd lectured to a class full of students with the tip of my penis hanging out of my opened zipper. With that belief in hand, I found myself staring intently at a rather pretty woman yesterday during an important business meeting.

As a cultured man, I'm aware of certain unalienable truths about women. Among these truths is the knowledge that odd black hairs begin to bud on women in peculiar spots: their ears, above their lips, around the general nipple region. These are things one learns from having sisters and wives and female friends and, in general, it's fine. People grow hairs and then they pluck them, or wax them, or have them removed via an intense program of electrical shocking. So, as I stared at the pretty woman in question--a woman of about 35 who I'd recently learned had two children and an ex and was a certifiable MILF in all the attributable categories--I couldn't help but notice two very long black hairs that hung from the bottom of her chin and curled back toward her rather lovely throat.

My first thought was that she just must have missed them this morning. Well, that's not quite right. My first actual thought was: What the fuck is up with that? I tried to catch the eye of a pseudo-friend in the room--you know, someone you've met on a number of occasions when money can be made for the both of you, so you enjoy a meal with each other, make small talk about life, love and Lakers and promise to get together "outside of this crap"--to see if he was also aware of the offending issue, but unlike me, he was actually paying attention to the matter at hand, which involved me, some of my words and a sum of money. Damn. I checked the rest of the people in attendance. All were otherwise I engaged. I'd have to go this one alone.

As I watched the woman, she reached up and toyed with the hair, like a man with a new goatee, her thumb stroking the strands absently. I was now officially compelled. She knew the hairs were there! They were so long, in fact, that she could have simply yanked them right out between her thumb and forefinger without much in the way of force. I imagined myself reaching across the conference table and doing it for her and watching, with mild interest, as her eyebrows retreated. I smiled involuntarily and the woman smiled back. Shit. I tried to focus on my thumbs.

This wasn't the first time I'd been spooked by odd body hairs on people I didn't know. My friend Peter, a publicist in the Bay Area, once took me to a restaurant near his home to show me a waitress who had a series of bumps on her eyelids that germinated hairs. I'd not told him of my fear, but he figured I'd enjoy the experience anyway, and I did. Kind of.

It's worse, of course, if you know the person, like the woman I fancied in college whom I discovered, at a most inopportune time, I might add, who had a tuft of curly hair on the small of her back. It was as if someone had accidentally rearranged her body parts and hadn't bothered to put things back into place. It freaked me out in a very real and diminishing wayÉI told her it wasn't about her, really, that it was about how I was feeling, and about an ex-girlfriend I still loved, and about my desire to not rush into things and thatÉfuckÉyou're growing Yeti hair on your back!

In the meeting yesterday, I knew I'd have no chance to backtrack if something embarrassing happened. The problem was that the woman was directly across from me and, on occasion, spoke directly to me. I decided to find a fixed spot above her head that I could stare at pensively, as if I were thinking hard about things when she asked me questions or proposed things to me, and then I would respond while nodding my head, so that even when I did see the woman's face, it would be like a cartoon jumping in and out of the frame. It seemed to do the trick, at least until we all stood up to leave.

The woman took a sip of the coffee in front of her and dribbled slightly. "Whoops," she said, rising, and dabbed at herself with a napkin. A single bubble of brown liquid rolled down her chin, affixed itself to one of her hairs, and then dripped onto the conference table, pooling between us. I inhaled sharply. She heard. I saw. She knew I knew. I got the hell out of there.