A woman struggles with all the hair on her face, questioning ideals of beauty and logistical costs of those ideals.
Setting: a woman is alone on the stage with a dresser that has a mirror. Next to it is a garbage bin. Her cellphone is one of the items on the dresser, along with beauty magazines.
Time: The year of 2020 during the Corona Virus pandemic.
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Look, there’s hair growing underneath my tattoed eyebrows. Now I have to clumsily pluck them out, or make an appointment with my eyebrow tattoo artist. She did a marvelous job two years ago. But now they’ve started growing all around, making a mess again. I wonder if she is still in the eyebrow business now, with the pandemic and all that. She sends me regular whatsapp blasts about all the homemade sweets she is making and selling, so maybe she’s doing that fulltime now? I mean, I don’t get eyebrow messages anymore.
Oh no, there is also hair growing on top of my lips, and for that matter, underneath my lower lip! Ok I can bear the eyebrow hair, but plucking these tiny hairs hurt like hell. It makes my skin all puffy afterwards too. Maybe I can see if that cute waxing place in Jakarta does facial wax. But goddamn, if it hurts as much as vaginal waxing, I don’t think I can handle it. They always say it doesn’t hurt…that much, with an apologetic smile. Which you know means “sorry, that’s the price of looking pretty.”
Whoever decided that pretty meant no facial hair for women anyways? I have hair sprouting everywhere and pain aside it costs so damn much to get them removed regularly. Don’t even get me started about armpit hair and leg hair.
Eek, I can’t look, oh where are those scissors. Now my nose hair is peeking out! Ok even I can’t stand to leave this on. Where are those goddamn scissors??
She looks in a bag full of different facial utensils. She pulls out a nose hair scissors that is dirty and rusty. She stares at how rusty it is and has a second thought.
Um, wow. I didn’t realize how long I’ve been staying at home not having to use this stuff. They’re all sticky and gross. I don’t want to develop nose infection. But I can’t stand those nose hairs either. And have people been seeing them this whole time on my Zoom meetings? Oh SHIT. I know, I’ll just use the scissors for paper and crafts to remove those nasty hairs.
She pulls open a drawer with bigger scissors. This drawer has other office supplies.
Well it’s a bit um BIG. I hope I don’t accidentally cut anything I’m not supposed to cut. But this is better than the gross nose hair scissors. I might get tetanus or something. And this is definitely better than having those ugly evil looking hair peeking out of my nose. I can feel the hair just sneering at me! Uh quick, let’s just cut away.
She focuses and cuts them. Then she relaxes and takes a deep breath.
Phew. No blood on the scissors, I’m not feeling any cuts, and I think I can still smell. I would say that was a success.
She wipes the scissors with tissue, then puts the paper scissors back in the drawer and throws the small scissors into the garbage bin. Turning back towards the mirror, she notices her ears.
Don’t tell me now…(she leans forward sideways, trying to inspect her ears more carefully). Thank goodness. No hair there. I’ve seen some people with thicker ear hair, and I wonder however are they supposed to cut them? I mean, is there a special ear hair shaver? Can you even do that without getting deaf? Well, at least that’s one place my hair is fine and thin and not sneeringly black. Glad I don’t have to worry about that.
Oh dear, all this is just causing me too much anxiety. I need to find something to calm myself down and feel happy again. (She thinks and her eyes spot her cellphone.) Maybe I’ll order one of those homemade dessert my eyebrow tattoo artist is now selling.
She flips over the beauty magazines so the cover is facing down. She then leaves the stage with her phone while making a call to the eyebrow tattoo artist.
Hello, long time no see! Are you healthy? I hope the pandemic and lockdown hasn’t gotten the worst of you? My eyebrows? Yeah you know, I’m not going to worry about that at the moment. Look I get all these pictures of delicious looking homemade desserts…
END OF MONOLOGUE.
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[…] Take a video of yourself performing the monologue that I wrote titled Pluck, Cut, Pluck. The monologue can be downloaded here. […]