On a sunny Saturday, a friend asked me to accompany her to a hairdresser’s. She was going to have a hair creambath. As I had no idea what I would like to do there, she suggested that I took a facial massage instead. Mm, sounded nice, I agreed.

As I entered the room where I would have the massage, the masseur suddenly asked, "Could I just pluck your eyebrows, too? They are so thick. I could just…you know, shape them a bit thinner and…" I was like, whoa!!! "Let me think about it first, okay?" Then my mind drifting to years ago, on my graduation day.

On a graduation day, female students are supposed to wear a national custom, that is a kebaya. We have our hair done and make-up done, and years a go, on that day, I went to a hairdresser’s to have all done. I was in the middle of having my make-up done when… kress…(i think that’s how it sounded) the hairdresser was just trying to trim my eyebrow!

"Wait a minute!" I stopped her. "What are you doing?" Then she explained about my thick eyebrows and wanted to shape it, etc., etc. I was a bit mad, she didn’t consult me first and my left eyebrow was a little thinner now than the right one. "It will grow," she said, a bit shocked at my reaction. Of course I was shocked. What if she trimmed all my eyebrows and what left was only a black thin line like a clown? In the end, I didn’t let her shape up my eyebrows.

Now I had a similar situation, only this time the masseur asked me first. While having my face massaged, I was thinking. Where did this whole idea of eyebrow plucking come from? Back to the pre-historic time when they first found a chalk to draw? Hehe… Had Cleopatra had her eyebrows plucked, too? What was her initial reason? Outer beauty or too heavy on face? ;)

Anyway, since the masseur asked me first, and he’s being polite and seemed to shed a tear if I said no, I finally had to let this determined person pluck a very litle tiny bit of my eyebrow so that… I am still the same me! Thank God!