Lest you think that all of my humbling experiences have come at the hand of my dear, devoted Mom, let me share an embarrassing experience that happened at my own hand....or slip thereof.
Let me explain. I have always been very sensitive, almost embarrassed, by my eyebrows. I thought they were as big as woolly caterpillars. I would barely look anyone in the eye. Honestly, grown men would die for mustaches as thick and full as my eyebrows were.
Being at the very critical age of 12 or 13, I decided it was time to get these mammoths under control. Being too shy and ashamed to ask anyone for help, I thought I could trim them up myself.
Now let me first set the stage. I grew up in the 70's and full wall mirrors were quite the rage. We just happened to have a wall-o- mirror behind our bath tub. (I just realized where my totally warped sense of body image came from.) Back to the taming of the brows. As I sat soaking in the tub, staring with deep disgust at the row of fur running across my forehead I came up with what I thought was a solution to my problem.
I grabbed my Dad's razor and proceeded with my plan. I took a little off the bottom and trimmed the tops. The right side looked gorgeous!! Thin and nicely rounded at the arch. I was feeling more confident already. As I proceeded to trim up the top of the left caterpillar brow, my elbow slipped off my knee and the razor removed exactly half of the inner part of my eyebrow. There I sat in a tepid tub of water with my beautifully shaped right eyebrow and half of a caterpillar on the left.
I was too shocked to cry and too mortified to get help from my mom. I immediately got out of the tub, got dressed and found my mom's eyebrow pencil thinking I could fill the barren spot in. Well let me tell you that didn't work, it was very conspicuous. Caterpillars have a lot of depth to them you know.
The next morning as I was getting dressed for school I had no idea how to deal with this situation. The best I could come up with was to part my very straight hair on the side and swoop it down over my eye making me look very mysterious I thought. "This will work" I thought to myself. Just as long as there is no wind and I don't have to move my head to the right or the left no one will know that a decapitated caterpillar lurks beneath the bang. That is until I got to school and someone asked me why I was wearing my hair like that? Quickly thinking on my feet my reply was "My Mom.....she is MAKING me." They bought it. Or they just didn't care and made mental notes not to fiddle with their own eyebrows.
After what seemed like months, my caterpillar friend filled back in and stayed stuck to my face until my late teens when a friend showed me the finer points of tweezers and plucking.
I wish I could say that now that I am older I don't care what people think about how I look, but that would be untrue. Because now my eyebrows are thinner, but the rest of me isn't and that brings on a whole other set of insecurities.
BEFORE
AFTER
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