What Women Do in the Cursed Name of "Beauty"...

I should know better than to go to the drugstore alone.  I
t starts off innocently enough. Moseying down the hair care aisle, shopping shampoos and canoodling the conditioners, moving on to hair brushes, bands, bobbles and tweekies.   Inevitably I find my quest for the perfect deoderant has led me down the hair removal aisle.
Now, as other conformist women like myself - I have developed, over the years, an aversion to body hair.  I don't want it where I don't want it.  
Perfectly coiffed on my head - fine.
Precisely plucked brows - fine.
Below the belt and between the chubby thighs - well - that is a different story.  I once was asked, by a man who shall remain nameless (you know who you are!) and who has an ironically odd aversion to female nether-hair to go bare.  So, out of love stupidity and nothing better to do on a Saturday night - I got rid of it.
All of it. 
I felt - cold.
Naked.
And it looked - for lack of better and over-descriptive terms - scared.
I've never gone back to the "grin and bare it" look but have often contemplated sitting on a waxing table with my everything exposed in order to have a groomed groin worthy of the sluttiest of Hollywood's pantyless people and peons. 
So as I read box after box of hair removal creams, waxes, no heat waxes, gels,  and one odd box that had horns - kid you not - I picked up a purple package and went home.
Three hours and one rather horrible fast food chicken sandwich later I was in the floor of my bathroom with a small lilac tub of microwaved wax. 
I decided to do my legs first. 
Putting one pale foot on the cabinet front, I used the wooden stick to smear on a thin layer of warm and soothing lilac-scented wax on the lower part of my leg. 
I glanced at the directions.
"Immediately apply paper and rub in direction of hair growth."
Okay. 
I found a paper and stroked my leg, cringed for a bit and then RIPPPPPPPPP!
"Holy Mother of Gooooooooooooood!"  I screamed.
And then thought about it.
It really didn't feel much different than when I accidentally cut myself shaving.  So I plundered on. 
The wax was so sticky that my right hand was now covered with various bathroom debris and fuzz.  I had used eight strips and other than having a nice polka dot effect and some patches of smoothness, I was doing okay.
Sticky, but okay.
Then - Summer calls.   I answer the phone, my pinky sticking to the cover while my thumb tangles in my hair.  
"Whatareyoudoing?"she asked in a hurried voice.
"Waxing my legs. Sticking to things.   It sucks."
"Oh. Wannagotothestorewithme?"
"Summer, I'm in my nightgown, I have purple goo on my legs, some on my fingers and -well  - everywhere! So - uh -no"
Holding the phone while ripping off another strip was unbearable, and I almost knocked the wax pot over on to the carpet when I jerked and spasmed.
"Okay," she said and then proceeded to talk to me about everything under the sun while I tortured myself with wild abandon. 
Finally, I got off the phone with her and looked at my bespeckled, red leg.  It was half done, little patches of hair still stood like soldiers in a field trying to go unnoticed by their big, goopy purple enemy.
The wax was cooling and more and more I feared that I would end up going to work with a wooden stick stuck to the inside of my calf.  
So I gave up. 
There was NO way I was going to put any of that on my other leg - so it's still "au natural" at the moment.   
And as for my nether-regions -  I worried that something awful would happen - like the lilac scented goo would be too sticky to rip off and end up just STUCK there and, well, that would make things rather complicated... so I deferred and will just be happy with one partly smooth leg and deal with the rest later. 
Well, it IS winter, after all...
:)   
AND                                         

to keep with the theme - here is a blog by my dear sister, stolen and reproduced WITHOUT permission from her one-hairy-legged sister:

Hairy Situation
Current mood: sleepy

I took Gillian 1/2 way to Richmond, VA yesterday to meet her dad. That side of Gillian's family are celebrating their Christmas a little early this year.  2 hours into the trip Gilly  had to go potty.  So we stopped at a bustling travel plaza.  In the packed, and very echo-y restroom Gillian was performing her usual antics.  She sang, tapped her feet, and spoke very very loudly.  When it was MY turn to go potty Gillian kicked it up a notch.  "Momma! WOOOOK!" To say she was screeching would be putting it too midly, for sure. The walls of our quaint little stall rattled with, " Momma! YOUR BAGINA HAS HAIR ON IT!!  WOOOOK! THAT'S SO SIWWY!! But my BAGINA don't gots hair on it.  BUT YOURS DOES!!"

Remember how I said before that the bathroom was busy?  Well, after my kid's  announcement, a pin drop would have sounded like a bomb going off.  OUr footsteps echoed  as we exited the bathroom. Gillian seemed to sense the eerie silence and, for once, when I could have used some distraction, she was quiet.  When we were clear, I swear the restroom erupted into laughter. 

I dont mind being laughed at. I quite enjoy it. And kids certainly have a knack for stating the obvious. I just gotta teach MY kid the proper place and time for a comedic monologue!