Hair Apparent
Just as a giant snowball lurching down a hill cannot be stopped, nor can a certain regime be halted once it has been adopted. One cannot turn back a juggernaut.
The certain regime I refer to is, of course, hair removal. So as the thought of snowballs and behemoths drifted through my consciousness this week, I was forced to lie down on a niggardly vinyl examination table not once, but twice. The second visit had necessitated the first, and I felt somehow railroaded by the whole damned process. How, you ask? Like this...
When one visits the doctor to check on all things 'Downstairs' (as my grandmother referred to such matters), there is the question of whether one should prepare. Just as one might prepare for the dentist by brushing and flossing, does one need to prepare for the gynaecologist in a similarly courteous way? Until recently I would have said 'No'. However, there is a certain point at which a tidal surge of social pressure becomes too overpowering to resist. Not that your average citizen parades around flaunting their Axminster (shall we say) but there are hints everywhere about how "everyone" else is wearing theirs nowadays.
So, in deference to fashion, I found myself at the local Beauty Parlour to have some work done. This establishment is run by some lovely Thai ladies and I imagine they've seen it all. Or have they? The young apprentice who was assigned to my job seemed competent enough in the leg waxing department, chatting away as she waxed on and waxed off.
Then came the real test. The bikini wax. "Ah, you want bikini or g-string?" Hmm, having never had either (see previous post on my retarded entry into the world of personal grooming), I opted for the latter. However, the look on the young lady's face as she surveyed the area to be tended, gave me cause to reconsider. Alarm is probably the most appropriate term for what she was feeling right there and then.
"You wait one minute," she instructed, as she raced from the cubicle and called for back up from The Master next door, who was quite clearly the proprietor. After much discussion, the dowager of depilation strode in, slapped on the switch for what was presumably the Special High Intensity Training wax pot and proceeded to prattle away in a didactic fashion to her sidekick.
Let us not talk of the pain here, for that comes without hesitation. Let us instead concentrate on the methods one used to mitigate the smarting of the nether regions. The most useful amusement it seemed, as she was ripping away, was to run through my small repertoire of palindromes: WOW, MADAM, HUH. And I thought to myself, could I make these into a sentence? I could, and I did.
As night follows day, the suffering did end and I relieved myself of $60 and made my way home, John Wayne-style. And as I perched myself on the office chair and reminisced on my day at the salon I thought it wise to channel The Duke himself, and he didn't fail me. "Life's hard," he said. "It's even harder when you're stupid."
