Hair splinters

So this has happened twice now. I have gotten a splinter in my foot or my finger. Sounds normal enough until I tell you what the splinter was.

A hair.

Yes, a hair splinter. Embedded in my skin. They are extraordinarily painful.

The first time this happened it was a dog hair splinter. I stepped into the bathroom in my bare feet and thought I must have stepped on a piece of glass. I looked... and looked but I didn't see anything. With every step it felt like a fresh stab from a needle. Finally I turned on all the lights and examined the foot. I could not believe what I was seeing. There was a dog hair stuck into my skin! I had to pull pretty hard to get it out. Yikes.

That was several weeks ago. I thought it was a freak occurrence. I never expected it to happen again! This morning I hugged Gordon as he left for work. My hand brushed against his shirt and OW! A tiny, TINY beard hair embedded itself into the skin of the first joint of my pinkie finger. I could not believe how much it hurt. Running my finger over the hair caused a sharp, burning, stinging pain. Fortunately it was easy to remove with tweezers.

What the heck?? I did a search for hair stuck in skin and found out it's pretty common for people to get dog hairs stabbed in their feet. I did not find out, however, why it hurts SO MUCH! And how does a hair find its way into the thick skin of a heel or toe?

This is the world we live in.