It all started when I was in college I noticed two black hairs growing under my chin. Thick, wiry and remarkably long, they were like shots across the bow of my face, warning of the full and lustrous beard that awaits me in middle age. In youthful defiance, I seized a pair of tweezers and removed them both.

The hairs grow back every six weeks or so and I dutifully pluck them. One time I let the heartier one grow for a while to see how long it would get. It stalled around a half inch. It's not that I don't like the hairs; in fact, they're sort of like my old friends. I just fear that they get lonely. They don't have any other dark hairs to keep them company.

Recently, however, the downy fluff above my lip has begun to darken in sympathy. The hairs near my ears and hairline are fashioning themselves into a pair of sideburns that would make a fourteen-year-old boy proud. And every so often, a rogue black hair sprouts without warning from the middle of my cheek. Slowly, my face is disappearing behind a mask of once-innocuous facial hair.
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