Insulted and indignant over Hank’s remark on an excessively hairy part of my female anatomy; I stand in the drugstore glaring at hair removal products. I swiftly pick up a product read the label and put it back. Least anyone should see me. I can feel a faint flush of embarrassment every time I pick a product up. What a mess. I do however want my man to be pleased with me and continue with the self inflected torture. I am an adult. I can do this. Or so I am coaxing myself to believe. I decide on a wax product, take two packages to the clerk and pay my dues. I meekly leave the store. The clerk had picked up the item and read the label then looked at me a long hard minute before ringing it up. I mentally plan to use a different drug store for a few weeks.
Inside, however, I am triumphant. I managed to purchase a product without seeking the consult of my best friend Lucy. This is a decision I will later regret. Triumphant. I have a brief mental image of myself dancing down the street to the Queen hit, "We are the Champions". Which I quickly snap out of and realize I am in fact still standing in front of the drugstore which I will not use for awhile. I make a beeline for my pickup truck and drive safely to my next destination. Home. My one safe place in the world which will soon become my one hell. Home.
I enter the left door of the two family home I live in. Do the normal stuff. Keys go here, coat there, shoes over yonder and then put the wax kits in the bathroom. O.K., so I am anal retentive about how I like to have things done. A slight bit of order in my otherwise chaotic life. I stand briefly and glare at the hair removal product, then leave the room.
I occupy myself with my Christmas baking. I occupy myself with some cleaning. I occupy myself with anything to avoid the bathroom.
Mustering up the courage I open the box and read the hair removal instructions. Sounds easy and painless. I decide to try the wax on what Hank had refenced to as my treasure trail. I follow the instructions and rip the hair off of my lower abdominal area. I break out in a slight sweat but over all it was not as painful as I had imagined.
Taking the lazy route, I decide to heat up the wax sheet with my blow dryer instead of kneading it with my hands. Mistake one. Or was mistake one actually purchasing the product. Or was mistake one being disillusioned by the first hair removal attempt not being painful. Uncomfortable yes, but not quite painful.
So I’ve heated the strip up and it is now pliable in my hands. I place one foot on the toilet and massage the wax into the top and left side of my, err... pelt, and wait the said three minutes for it to set. I grit my teeth and yank. I am quite sure my yowl of surprise and pain can be heard in the next county and I have a mental image of people trying to enter my home. I stand like a deer on the first day of hunting season. I wait. My senses are acutely aware of every minor noise in my dwelling.
I sense no immediate danger of being caught. And why exactly am I scared of getting caught. After all everyone is doing it. Getting into personal grooming that is. It is no longer taboo. IS IT? I mean you can buy the stuff in public stores. Anyone, no one is coming to my rescue. Somehow, that should normally be a bad feeling, but right now I am greatly relieved.
"We are the Champions" is once again playing in my head. And I look down at my score. I blink. I look again in astonishment. The strip that should be holding wax and hair is now just a strip. Foot still on the toilet I look down south on my body and discover what will soon be my demise of a self respecting person. My tush is covered in melted wax and matted hair. ‘Oh No. Oh shit. What the fuck were you thinking Sam.’ I mentally berate myself. I have made my own chastity belt.
I grab the box. On the side of the box in bold red letters it say : DO NOT HEAT COLD WAX WITH ANYTHING OTHER THEN YOUR OWN BODY HEAT. Alright, so maybe the blow dryer was a horrible idea. In more red lettering it reads : QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, PROBLEMS CALL and a phone number.
I have another mental image. This one is of my panicked call. Them taking personal information, asking specific questions as to where and how long the wax has been there and then the image goes further to reveal they would of course record the conversation and put it on the six o’clock news.
With quite certainty that the box and instructions are not going to help me any, I throw the box in the sink. I make a quick decision to do what I did not want to do in the first place. To call my best friend Lucy. I snap my leg off the toilet and fight that brief indecision to call her or not. After all she is always bragging about being bare down there and she was a beauty school drop out. I feel the back of the hair on my neck prickle followed by this... this tale tell itch of warmth and seeping across my vagina. I look down in horror to find the stuff spreading.
I run, not walk, to the phone and hit the speed dial for Lucy’s cell phone. She answers in her cheery voice.
"Thank God you picked up."
"What what’s up, got a spot you can’t remove?" Yep my dearest Lucy. Always the first to pick on my excessive cleanliness.
"NO. This is a real emergency. Where are you, can you come over here like right this minute?"
"What is wrong."
"PLEASE!"
"All right. But is it emergency like we are going to the hospital or is it emergency like I can come as I am."
"Come as you are, but HURRY." I hang up the phone. I now am aware of an even bigger problem. I was standing still with my legs shut. The wax has now hardened. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." I howl. Oh no. Oh my God no. Oh shit. I tentatively feel myself thru the said hard wax. The wax has managed to spread almost completely to my butt and I am sealed shut. Great now what.
Mental note. When in doubt of your situation do not envolk Murphy’s law.
So as Murphy’s law goes, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. The phone rings. I look at the caller ID in absolute terror. It is Hank. Should I answer it. I think not. But what if it is him calling to say he is coming to my house for lunch. I answer.
"Hey baby." Trying to force a false sense of calm in my voice.
"Oh I adore it when you call me baby." He snickers into the line. "Look the show got canceled tonight so I am going to finish up at the studio and come by your place. I was thinking maybe we can hook up with Brandon and Lucy."
"No."
"No what."
"No to everything. Tonight is not good."
"Since when am I not good enough? Damn Sam, we practically live together."
"I did not say you were not good enough Hank. I just said this was not a good time for this."
"You don’t want to see me. I can’t believe this."
"I made plans with Lucy, seeing you had that show tonight, and she is going to be here any minute."
"And now Lucy is more important then me, what the F." He is angry. Or is it jealous? "I get to spend so little time here, and when I do, I’m sorry but yes Sam, I expect you to spend every moment possible with me and I don’t think that is too damn much to ask." And he hangs up.
I know the routine. I am suppose to call him back and calm his hurt feelings and make everything ok. But I really am at a loss of what to say other then the truth and I am not about to admit defeat to him.
I hear Lucy pulling in the driveway. I duck walk/run to the bathroom and wrap a towel around my waist and repeat the now painful duck walk/run to the door. I snatch Lucy by the hand she has raised to knock on the door and jerk her in and slam the door. She looks at me in mild surprise. "What the hell is wrong."
I feel tears well up in my eyes. "Help me." I manage to say through my sobs.
Her big green eyes seek mine and she looks genuinely concerned. She rubs my shoulder. "It is going to be ok honey, but you have to tell me what is wrong in order to fix it."
Yep that is Lucy. She can fix anything. I hysterically sob my dilemma to her. I watch as her face goes from concern to surprise to flat out humor. "It is not funny Lucy. Now Hank is all mad at me..." and I explain the conversation I just had with him.
"All right. All right. It is funny though, and in a year or two you might get off your high horse and see the actual humor in it. Take off the towel and lets see how bad it is." She kneels before me and removes my towel. Her patient and steady hands feel the length and width of the wax. I flush all over with humiliation. "Oh Sammy, no don’t be embarrassed. I’m flattered that you trust me enough to let me try to help."
Together we explore the possibilities. She even tries nail polish remover. Nothing works. The wax just gets harder. We both jump when we hear another vehicle in the driveway. Lucy runs to the front window and looks out.
"Oh, Oh, Oh, Sam your not going to like this, but Hank is here."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" I scream and lock myself in the bathroom. "GET RID OF HIMMMMMMMM." I howl. I press my ear up against the bathroom door and listen closely.
"Oh hello Hank."
"Hi Lucy." I hear a slight shuffle. "Look you can move and let me in or I will pick you up and bodily move you."
"You can’t come in right now, Hank. Please leave."
"Why does she have another man in there?" He yells. Furious.
"No. Not at all. It is just not a good time."
"Get out of the way Lucy. I want to see my girlfriend. She has nothing to hide from me."
"Oh well, now and again a woman needs a little privacy."
"She should have thought about that last night, now move." I hear more shuffling and a slight screech from Lucy.
"No look Hank, you don’t understand."
"And how the HELL am I suppose to understand a damn thing if no one tells me anything." I hear him run upstairs. Then downstairs. Then thru the downstairs. The door handle is jiggling.
"Go away Hank." I yell.
"Let me in Sam. If your going to break up with me you are going to do it to my face."
"I am not going to break up with you." I say in a normal voice.
"Then let me in." His voice has calmed down slightly.
"Hank, please, just trust me on this one." I start to cry. He kicks the door in. I am sitting in the corner next to the bathtub with my arms wrapped around my knees and sobbing. "Damn you Hank." He looks wildly around the bathroom and into the tub. He then kneels down on the floor in front of me.
"Sam, baby, what on earth is wrong." He pulls me into his arms. "Are you Pregnant?"
I snap my head up and glare at him. Murphy’s law echoing in my brain. "No, worse." I sob.
"Pregnant is not bad, Sam. What is wrong."
"She has managed to seal herself shut because you said she was too hairy down there." Lucy belts and sits on the toilet looking at us. I drop my head into my lap and start to do this strange hiccup, laugh sob thing.
"Excuse me?" Hank asks and Lucy hands him the cold wax box. He starts to laugh. "Interesting. Not what I had in mind when I said you were to furry down there. I was thinking more on the lines of maybe you letting me shave you with a flavored shaving gel." He sighs and laughs. "Ok. Well lets play show and tell. You show me what you’ve done and tell me how you did it."
I tell him what I did and what we tried. He sighs and gets the phone and returns about to dial the number on the box. "We thought about that but then thought they might sell her out to the local news or make it a triple X movie about so weird sex fetish." Lucy blurts. He looks from Lucy to myself a few times and then starts to laugh. Hysterical man laughter. The type that no matter how horrible the actual situation appears to be, you can’t help but join in.
We calm down and he calls. He explains to them that the wax has adhered to the skin on the inner thigh while doing the bikini line and has separated from the paper. He went over what we tried and wanted to know the next option. He chuckled and hung up the phone.
"Sam dearest love."
"I am not sure I like that tone."
"They said to take you to the hospital. That they would have to surgically remove the wax."
Silence.
More Silence.
Followed by the three of us laughing. "Well fuck me." I kind of sob laugh.
"I’d love to dear, but your sealed shut." To which of course we all burst out in more laughter.
