ANDRE BEGIN

I think it would be fair to say that most pet parents accept that pet hair is a fact of life. Fortunately, we have a variety of devices to manage the situation, whether for vacuuming, dusting or sweeping.

We also have remarkable inventions like lint rollers to keep us looking our best.

However, one fact of life that is a little stranger and more challenging to navigate is when there is nothing there.

How many times have I found myself quietly reading or watching TV when, all of a sudden, it feels like there is a cat hair tickling my face, and not in a funny, ha-ha, sort of way? Given that I have been follicly-challenged and sporting very short clipper cuts for about 20 years, the evidence is clear that the strand of hair is not my own.

At first, it begins with an attempt to brush the hair away with my hand. Then a few seconds later, the sensation returns, followed by another attempt to brush it away. When the sensation occurs for the third time, if the attempts to brush it away are fruitless, irritation sets in as I wonder where the cat hair is coming from.

I accept that brushing it away isn’t always as straightforward as it may seem. Between the stubble of my beard, the static that can build up in the dry winter months or something as simple as a fresh application of moisturizer, factors such as these can lend themselves to my face becoming a magnet for cat hair.

Rather than rub my face until it looks like I lost a fight, I’ll head to the bathroom with the brightest surgical lighting above the vanity mirror to find and rid myself of the problem.

Then the mystery begins when I don’t actually see a cat hair there. Like a three-way Broadway mash-up, we have a phantom cat hair!

While my cat is a beautiful tortoise-shell colour offering a few different shades of cat hair that could be orbiting my face, in certain seasons, the offending hair might be a very pale, wispy one from her undercoat that is more difficult to spot.

If I don’t locate the specific source of the tickle, the second approach is to take a washcloth and run it over my face to see if that loosens whatever is causing the impression of a phantom cat hair. If the problem persists, I wet the washcloth and try again.

If all else fails, a full face wash might be in order, to hopefully get some relief and get back to my book or TV show.

During shedding season, it doesn’t matter how meticulously I may have cleaned the house with an assortment of manual and mechanical tools; it just takes the furnace or air conditioner to kick off, to start a twister-like swirl of wind to gather up hidden cat hair from places unknown.

That being the case, as pet parents, we need to take situations like these with a grain of salt, a sense of humour, and to remind ourselves of how lucky we are to have such delightful companions to join us along life’s journey.

Cat hair will always be a fact of life… whether it’s there or not.

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Have a great day,
André