I’m driving the other day with the sunroof open (in keeping with California state law).  As I glance in the rear view mirror, the sunlight hits my face at just the right angle and [cue slasher theme from “Psycho”] I make the grisly discovery that I am the fourth member of ZZ Top.
 
I am used to being a girl who has the typical, factory-installed amount of hair with standard default settings for location and density.  But this?  This is beyond the occasional wax-the-downy-soft-peach-fuzz-from-my-upper-lip-type situation.
 
My cheek looks like an old tennis ball.
 
Benefits to having robust facial fur:
 
*  Helps preserve body heat if you get lost while glacier-climbing.
*  Auto mechanics take you seriously.
*  Children’s friends aren’t sure who you are, but they friggin’ mind you.
*  Going to a wedding?  You can braid festive baby’s breath along your jaw line.
 
I try plucking.  I try waxing.  Still I have more nap than a rumpus room carpet.  It quickly becomes apparent that I have no choice but to seek superior firepower.  Enter the Bosch “Smooth Operator” Two-Speed, Three-Headed Epilator with Faux Python Holster.
 
How hard can it be, right?  I’ve been through childbirth twice.  I’ve had food poisoning.  I’ve worked in PR.  I’ve known agony.
 
I begin, say, next to my right ear.  Bzzzzz.  The tiny metal wheels turn furiously, grabbing those fuzzy hairs by the throat and yanking them out at a rate of, I don’t know, a thousand per millisecond?  (I’m just ball-parking here.)
 
I can do this.  A slight sting, maybe a prickle.  But it’s worth it, right?  After all, somewhere under that turf is my old face.  (Well, that didn’t come out right.)
 
I move on to my cheek.  BZZZZZZZ.  The machine sounds different now, like it’s kicked into a lower gear.  I’m glad I spent extra for the turbo model.  My eyes are starting to water a bit, but by God, I’m no wuss.  I hold an image in my mind of what I used to look like before I started channeling Burl Ives.
 
The chin.  A veritable thicket.  BZZZZZZZ.  Die, little hair bastards, die!  Ha-ha!  I swear I can hear them screaming as they are torn from their follicular bunkers.  Oh, wait.  That’s my voice.
 
The upper lip:  last remaining pelt outpost.  Also the repository of approximately 8.2 gazillion nerve endings, each with its own, quivering plume holding on for dear life.  I pause, blowing the smoke and singed fringe from the end of my appliance as I give the stinkeye to the little hairs in the mirror.  I look very badass indeed in my woven serape, hat pulled low over my eyes and the brown stub of a cigarillo screwed into the corner of my mouth.
 
I am no stranger to torment, my friend.  Only one shall leave the bathroom today.  The other shall perish, living on only in children’s folk songs and Etch-A-Sketch art.
 
::click:: BZZZZZZZ.
 
The machine surges and bucks but I hang on, pushing again and again into the plush frontier of my upper lip.  I try to wave the burning hair away from my teary, bloodshot eyes as I release a primal shriek, but it’s coming in waves now, like grass clippings shooting out the side of a lawnmower.
 
Just before I black out, I have a vision of what awaits when I come to.  I’m splayed on the bathroom floor in super-high-waisted jeans that have not seen natural sunlight since 1996, surrounded by neighborhood children and a few stray dogs, all staring curiously at the now-drained device snarled in the underbrush of my upper lip.
 
My secret is out.  Soon everyone in the public school will know that I am…
 
THE WEREWOLF.

(Catch more of Anna Lefler at her blog, LIFE KEEPS GETTING WEIRDER!)