I have a hairy nose. Not a lady-like stray filament but a Russian politician's eyebrow grows out of my nose.

Obviously this unseemly hair must be dealt with. Plucking it up there with tweezers is like a root canal without anaesthetic; clippers are OK until they nip that tender skin; magic cream is the answer. Technically it's for the removal of black men's beards but it's just about strong enough to solve my hairy problem.

I undertake this most intimate task when everyone is asleep--nice and early on a Sunday. I plug my nose with depilatory, listen to the radio while I wait for the magic to handle my problem, rinse and return to bed with no one the wiser.

Except the other day my plan went awry. As I sat for the compulsory 7-9 minutes listening to the soundtrack of "O Brother Where Art Thou," I must have scratched my eyebrow because when I went to the sink to rinse my nose hair down the drain, a large blob of white magic hung from my eyebrow. Of course, when I washed my face, half my nose hair remained requiring a second application (against the cautionary instructions found on the packaging), and half my eyebrow fell off.

Like a self-conscious balding man, I flopped by hair over. If I wore my glasses just so and kept my hair in my face, no one would notice the abrupt contour of my eyebrow. Who cares right? In accordance with Murphy's Law, I was headed for a parole hearing the very next day. But what could I do? Not a thing. I told myself that the interviewer would never notice.

Tomorrow arrived and I have my hearing. The guy is reading and typing. It's very quiet. Very, very quiet. I feel like I am half an eyebrow with legs. My mind starts whirling. He's going to think I have gang affiliation (don't they "carve" their eyebrows?) and if I tell him about the cream there is the implication that I must have picked my nose to get the cream on my finger before scratching my eyebrow. In the best Seinfeld tradition, I did not pick my nose but ... I am entangled trying to explain the events that led to my missing eyebrow.

I break under the pressure and into the very quiet room where the man is reading and typing, I blurt out, "I was so nervous I pulled it out my mistake!" The man's own eyebrows shot up. His fingers pause their tip tapping and he stares at me. "My eyebrow," I mumble. Still he stares. Looks down at my file, flips through it, looks up at me and says, "You're not on any medication, are you?"

"No," I choke out.

"I see," he says. "So what are your plans, Ms. Haysom?"

I smile and lean forward, "Well I was considering the feasibility of harvesting some toe hair and glue it to my eyebrow."

After a thoughtful silence he says, "I see," and returns to his typing. Finally he looks up at me again, "Thank you, Ms. Haysom, that'll be all. Oh, and next time you might consider pulling out your nose hair instead."

Mortified I stumbled from the room learning from this almost true story that there are no magic answers for our hairy problems. (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, May 19, 2005)

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. This column is one of a series, published under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'