Oh, my Paws and Whiskers!

 

No I haven't gone back into Alice-country again; and no, paws actually don't have anything to do with anything at all I'm wittering on about. In fact neither of the two nouns in that sentences have ever played a vital role in my life. And that's pretty much a common experience: there are some things in life we are only familiar with at second-hand, because they are characteristics associated with other species. From White rabbits to seals the common factor is not the apparatus which enables locomotion. It's whiskers.

The very first entry on a basic on-line search for the word "whiskers" brings up the information: "one of several long stiff hairs that grow near the mouth of some animals." The example sentence follows: "The cat licked its whiskers." 

Now I'm not one to credit conspiracy theories; I spent years as an investigative journalist. But, this thing about the whiskers? It just seems so fishy to me. I think it's cheap sophistry to insist that we are all animals, and this is adequate information. Whiskers are things some animals have? Some animals have trunks, for godssakes! 

The concurrent Wiki sidebar which accompanies the Wiki Dictionary narrows it down a little:  it is only mammal animals  who sport whiskers.

And there you have it. Wiki and the First Entry citation. Who need spare another thought to mammalian whiskers? That's all the information that currently exists.

Armed with so little knowledge on the subject of whiskers, it's impossible  not be unnerved the first time we perceive a long dark curl creeping from the confines of a beloved nostril across the dining table; and how suppress the shiver of horror when sighting a similar dark curl unfurling in the wind from the crevice beneath one's very own neck!

These harbingers can take one unawares at any stage of our lives and yet no-one tells us the truth: - we are mammals. These are whiskers!

In the first moments of shock, of course, it's natural to run into the bathroom, seize the tweezers, and yank that sucker out.  Which, of course, we would never do, had we learnt about the whisker at our mother's knee. Had school biology included information on the whisker, at least some of us would have learnt of it. But the fact that even the tertiary educated emerge no less prepared for the advent of the whisker in their own lives than anyone else, is surprisingly dodgy.

Yet no curricula, anywhere, carries units on those Dark Curlies aforementioned.

Those, as most of us learn to our bitter cost, are the way the cunning  whisker manifests upon the human body.

We've all plucked a hair from it's cosy bed; whether from an eyebrow, a moustache or -  godelpus - our genital area. We all know that it takes a bit of a tug. So much so that, depending on the area being denuded, it can bring tears to our eyes.

But 'hairs' are a completely different ballgame to the Dark Curlies. These monsters are whiskers in the pupal stage; And they are going to fight for survival. I've heard stories about Dark Curlies that would  terrify the most sanguine: Dark Curlies that took two men in tandem to draw  from their lairs; I've heard of Dark Curlies that, like Jack's beanstalk, grew and spread each night; and I've heard of Dark Curlies leaving behind bacteria which led to having half a face  removed.

It's  your average Dark Curly having a well-innervated hair follicle that does it.  Because a well-innervated hair follicle means someone's going to have to pin you to your chair with a knee to your chest, in order to deal with it. The survival technique of the mammalian whisker ensures you'll never be able to pull the root out without help. The best you can do is try to break it off as close to the skin as possible.

 For the instant you manage to break the stem of a Dark Curly it morphs instantly to A Whisker.

Overnight, in the follicle from which a rather whimsical hair had swayed in the breeze,  a tough, belligerent stalk squats just out of reach of tweezers. You run a fingertip over it and draw blood...and your heart sinks: as you realise that this, finally, is it. You have morphed. You are now a whiskered mammal. You & the soulful-eyed seal, the majestic elephant and the shrieking hyena share facial characteristics. We are be-whiskered.

Of course no conspiracy of the magnitude of this global plot to conceal the less savoury elements of producing and nourishing live young, could possibly succeed without lots of skull-duggery and dirty deeds. So it's safe to assume that those with a proven track-record in these skills are behind it.

Thus, it's either The Drug Companies, The Vatican or Venezuela that's powered this gigantic cover-up; and good cases can be made for all three of these contenders. 

But I maintain that, no matter how large this conspiracy is, together we can fight it. And win!

We must prepare our children from an early age that one day, if male they will end up indistinguishable from the common or garden Garden gnome, all facial orifices plugged or surrounded by whiskers.  If female, they will take on the appearance of a Great Sage and will be able to add import to their every utterance by stroking  a whiskery chin which, unfortunately, is not the look most women are going for at any particular moment in their lives.

We must bring The Whisker out into the open. Together we shall give The Whisker a voice. We will put a stop to the marginalisation of the common mammalian whisker, and insist that Whiskery Barbie become the standard model, while Action Men must have a full free-flow of ear whiskers, in order to qualify as children's icons.

Then, once the whole world has realised  that The Whisker is one of the greatest scourges of humankind, we shall demand that the Drug Companies and the Vatican and Venezuela work together for the benefit of all, to research into, and put an end to the private whisker shaming most of us endure alone. 

Indeed, the more thought one gives to the subject the more one has the courage to look forward to a whisker-free future of all of humanity. 

But in the meantime people, we've managed to liberate and normalise talk of bodily functions, we even admit women have periods in mixed company. We engage in heated arguments over politics, we thrash out sexual conundrums in public and turn private religious convictions into subjects for heated debate. Yet nowhere, ever, does anyone ever discuss the fact that each of us through no fault of their own, sprouts whiskers.

WTF is up with this?