When we were growing up, my brother and I used to joke that, if my father were to die, we would have him made into a fireplace-front rug.

Which is to say, he’s fairly hairy. Apparently, however, that fact eluded him for some time. Famously, shortly after he and my mother were married in their early twenties, when he was already verging on gorilla, the two of them went to Jones Beach with my mother’s sister. As a middle-aged man walked by, my father commented, ‘you know what I think is really gross? Back hair.’ Which led the two ladies to share concerned glances, implying the question, “which one of us has to tell him?”

This seminal story stuck with me for at least two reasons: first, it explicated the dangers of unnoticed back hair, and second, it indicated that, genetically, if I was at risk of looking like Teen Wolf myself, it would likely already have kicked in.

By now, having made it all the way to 26, I think I may finally be in the clear. But, heeding the other lesson of that family story, about once a week, I adjust the mirrored doors of my bathroom cabinets so that one faces the other, allowing me to double-check.

And, if I ever were to find a villous matting, I know my younger brother would come through. Still in his perilous early twenties, he keeps an electrolysist on speed-dial. Just in case.