Hairy Eyeballs

For years, I have heard folks—particularly sportscasters—describing one guy giving another the “hairy eyeball”.

A toe-curling metaphor, surely. A synonym for “murderous glare”, “special hard stare”, even “stinkeye”, which is equally disturbing but hardly more disgusting. “Hairy eyeball”, however, takes the prize for nightmarish mental imagery in the Venomous Look department.

I once thought it was simply a particularly vivid way to describe all of the above. Then I saw this bush on the walk home from work. And every bloom on it saw me.

Now I know where they come from.