Thou Shall Tell Your Friend if She has 3 inch Black Whisker Sticking Out of Her Chin!

"Beauty draws us with a single hair."  ~ Alexander Pope

I just bet you that when Alexander Pope was quoted as saying, "Beauty draws us with a single hair", he was probably not referring to the flowing hair of one of those ugly, coarse, black, where-the-heck-did-this-straggler-come-from hairs that will inevitably show up at the most inopportune times and in the most ridiculous places!

I mean, honestly!  Where do these little black hairs come from? How is it that they "appear" more and more as we age....and how come they don't show up where clothing can hide them.......And WHY does it seem that they are able to grow 3 inches over night?!?

I recently had a friend text me and another friend of ours with this message: "Okay ~ the 2 of you are in so much trouble!! How many days did I walk around with this 3 inch black whisker sticking out of my chin?? AND a half-mustache on the right side of my lip!?? Do you have eyeballs and a conscience??!!  Next time TELL me to pull out the tweezers!!!"

I literally read her text and doubled-over in laughter right there in the kitchen where my husband was eating. ha!

Kevin asked me what was so funny and I just laughed some more and said, "Nothing....just girl stuff."  He just shook his head and kept eating. ha!

I immediately had two thoughts after I read her text:

My FIRST thought was, "Yes! She IS like the rest of us!" (You see, this is the good friend of mine who is truly almost too good to be true.)  She ALWAYS looks clean, pressed, dressed to the nine, make-up perfectly ready for sunlight (or moonlight) and her hair is ALWAYS coiffed to perfection.  ...So quite honestly, I was happy that my buddy is human after all. Ha!

My SECOND thought was, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!....If ANYone in this world will tell someone that they have a 'straggler' on their chin, neck, face or ear...... or spinach in their teeth .....or toilet paper hanging from their skirt or ANYTHING else of that nature......it is ME!"

No question about it!!! I have been there, done that and KNOW how embarrassing it is!

It is times like these that I realize how great God's sense of humor really is!  Honestly, if I ever start feeling a little too full of myself for whatever reason, I can rest assured that it won't be long before I'm talking to an old college friend with spinach comfortably placed right in the middle of my two front pearly whites!

And YES! That DID happen...and the guy I was talking to was an old friend I dated a little bit in college. We were at my grandmother's birthday party.  I was smiling, talking and laughing with old college teachers (party was in Ruston where I went to college) old college friends and of course, old college boyfriends.  After TWO hours of this fun reunion with old pals, my mom gasped in horror as I smiled to her across the room!  

Yep....it wasn't just a tiny little speck of spinach lodged in-between some back wisdom teeth that people couldn't see too well...NOPE....it was the whole leaf securely lodged right in the front!!!!! Haha!!

To top it off??  I went to one of my grandmother's closest friends and I said, "Mrs. Williams!! I just talked to you for THIRTY minutes and you never once mentioned that I had spinach in-between my teeth!! Why in the world didn't you tell me?!"

You ready for this?? She smiled slyly, rested on her back heel and in this slow, southern drawl said, "Oh huneh' no wuhrries...I jes simpleh thought it wus decay, chile."

Cracker, WHAT?!?  Decay?? My mind races, "Good God, I talked to Scott...to Matt....to Mrs. James....to..... and oh my-lanta! I bet they all think I've come back after all these years with a bad case of decay! WAH!!!! 

Lol!!!

My family and I have laughed and laughed and laughed over this throughout the years....because, quite frankly there is nothing much more you can do about it.  Sometimes you just Gotta Laugh.

My dad used to say, "God is like this Great Big Comedian....only He's playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

During the hardest and most humbling parts of life, Dad would just smile his dimpled smile and say, "Sometimes, you just gotta laugh, Ter-Ter.  Life is funny baby girl....so you might as well just laugh."

And, oh how right he was......

Like about a week or two ago, I was being playful with my husband one night..... I walked out of my bathroom topless giving him a little "preview" before the show, so to speak. (ha!)  He was smiling until I got closer and then he kind of had this funny look on his face as he looked in "that" area ....and then all of the sudden, he smiled even bigger, as if he might laugh!  

I ignored it and continued my playful mood....and in a flirty tone, I said to him, "You like what you see big boy?" (I know, totally corny!..but I am a dork and know it). 

He looked at me straight in the face and said, "Well, I like YOU a whole lot, but not so sure of the little friend here that you decided to bring along."

Huh? What did he mean?  I look down at the right side of my chest and just about DIED!

...YEP! (Yet again, ANOTHER humbling moment to help me "grow" and "evolve", as my mom would say. ha!) 

Story of my life.

As if waving from the "porcelain deck" of some cruise ship about to depart from shore, my freakin' right boob had, I swear!, a FIVE inch, black, straggly "stowaway" hair in all it's single glory waving as if to say, "Hi Yall!  What What! Let's get this party started!" 

NOOOOOOOO!!!! Are you freakin' kidding me?!? Where the HECK did this thing come from?!?

Good God Almighty.....I honestly thought I might just die right there on the spot. Lol!  

But I didn't die... (as much as I wanted to!)....so you know what I did instead?  

Of course you know what I did..... I laughed....ahem....WE laughed.  And then we laughed some more! ....Until finally, I ran blushing to the bathroom to look for the closest tweezers!!

In the bathroom I said to God: "Lord, seriously??.....the teen years weren't humbling enough?!  Now, You want me to continue learning this brand of humility in my 40's?!?  C'MON NOW.....Give a dog a bone!"

I even tried compromising with God, while I was in the bathroom.  I said, "Lord, now look, I get it.  There are some things I will just have to let go of as I age....Like jumping on the trampoline!  Okay, so I can't jump on the trampoline anymore without wearing Depends. Fine. You win. .......And I can't "move like Jagger" like I once could..... So be it, whatever ....And the 'muffin top' thing? Okay, I promise to continue to work on that.......

........But black straggly whiskers sticking out of my chin, lip, face or BOOB??  Nu-uh...No way....Not Happening...I will not go down like that, Lord! You gotta work with me on this one!"

I have a strong feeling God got a good laugh out of that.....and that's good.  I really quite like the idea of making God chuckle a little bit.....

But as my grandmother, Gracie, used to say (and I promise to God this was truly her last request for the last ten years of her life! And she was not joking.  She would say in her beautiful Northern Louisiana drawl,  "When I am dead in my coffin, SOMEBODY better love me enough to tweez my chin." Ha!

I used to laugh at that and think she had lost her ever lovin' marbles!    
.... Hey! Guess what? Look who's Not laughing anymore. 

Let this be my last request. "When I, Teri Spinks Netterville, am also dead in my coffin, SOMEBODY better love ME enough, TOO, to tweez my chin."  

"Lord, hear my prayer." Amen.

*Gotta Laugh*

Have a great one!

Teri