OPINION

Back in the day when the All Blacks were still invincible and petrol cost cents rather than dollars, I recall sitting down with a mate who had just completed his “community service”.

Now this
was not enforced community service of the judicial kind as recompense for offences committed, I hasten to add. This was voluntary.

Having said that my mate did view his service as something of a sentence as it turned out.

Let me explain.

Essentially all he’d done is offer to drive the old bloke from down the road to the big smoke for a hospital appointment. It ended up becoming a regular thing and for four hours every month my Good Samaritan mate would help the old boy into his car and off they’d go.

Once, upon his return, he came straight to the pub where The Boys were waiting. He got his beer, drained half of it in one go and let out a “geez that was a long day” sigh.

Turns out the journey had become a bit of a drag. The old guy liked to talk a lot.

Initially they’d talked about all sorts of things like football, women, the war etc, etc but slowly conversation had turned predominantly to the medical ailments and aches and pains of the older man.

My mate felt he had become something of an expert in the field of nocturnal urination (ie getting up for a wee in the middle of the night) and various issues to do with the prostate, neither of which particularly concerned him at that stage in life.

I guess conversations you have with your friends are a bit of a snapshot of what stage of life you are at. Way back then when we were all in our 20s I remember wondering what exactly we’d all be talking about at the pub as we all got older. What would we be worrying about?

Fast forward a hundred years and we are fast approaching 60. The Boys are back at the pub for a regular catch-up and conversation has changed a bit.

Naturally the form of the All Blacks and the price of petrol are still favourite topics but one of the boys is now extolling the virtues of the electric bicycle which is kind of ironic given he was the quintessential petrolhead back in the day with the biggest Yamaha XYZ something-or-other motorbike.

He’s also keen on growing your own vegetables now which I find particularly amusing as he used to grow his own, er, ‘stuff’ back in the day if you get my drift.

Anyway.

We haven’t gravitated to issues concerning nocturnal urination just yet – though judging by the number of times one of our crew went to the loo during our get together I’d say it’s not far away – but we did have a good chat about one thing that’s very important to blokes of our age.

I’m talking about out-of-control nasal, ear and eyebrow hairs.

It all started as I was heading out the door.

As usual I approached Mrs P for the obligatory farewell snog but just as she was about to melt into my arms (I’ve still got it, ahem) she issued a firm Do Not Proceed order.

It seems a rather long, bedraggled eyebrow upon my chiselled facial features had caught her eye. By all accounts it would be so embarrassing for her if people knew she had let me out looking like that so it required immediate removal.

Before I knew it I was sitting on a stool in the kitchen as my beloved, snipping scissors in hand, was reshaping my eyebrows.

Now my eyebrows are not your stock, standard variety. “Thick and bushy” would be one way to describe them. A “hedge with deferred maintenance” would be another.

Accordingly the job turned into a bit of a mission.

She’d comb through the forest, snip off any hairs that dared to poke their head above the desired height and then stand back and have a look. Invariably she’d spot a rogue hair not doing what it should and, basically because that’s what you do, she pulled it.

It would be fair to say it hurt. I may have even let out a little yelp. She definitely let out a huge laugh.

From then on the operation descended into chaos as she giggled her way across my forehead, yanking loose hairs as I yelped and tried to move my head away.

Eventually the hedge was trimmed and I was allowed out to play.

I was late and explained why to the boys. And that’s how we got onto the subject.

“The ones in your nose hurt the most when they pull them,” said The Big Fella solemnly looking into his beer as the rest of the group nodded in agreement.

Momentarily I pictured his wife, the tiniest (but most delightful) of creatures, swinging on a loose nasal hair to see if she could free it.

Rampant ear hair was the issue for Daveo but he’d avoided any matrimonial interference by getting a razor with an ear attachment which did the trick. However, he admitted he forgot about it mostly until the silver tentacles of a creature burst out of his ear canal every now and then and needed to be put back into their place.

All of us had experienced the phenomenon which, our mate Rabid Reader, assured us it just happens as you get older. He’d read about it. Naturally.

He’d not seen any research that suggested wives took great pleasure in removing said hairs and inflicting pain on their husbands but I was left in no such doubt when I got home.

I was met at the door by Mrs P with a comb in one hand and the scissors in the other.

With a smile of anticipation on her dial she said she was pretty sure she’d missed a hair first time around and wanted to go back in for another go.