The Agony of De-fuzzing (Do I Have a Hair Fixation?)

You know, ‘twas not so long ago that a woman’s body was expected to have hair in most of the same spots as a man’s body – just go a lot easier on the facial and leg hair. But something changed in the psyche of the denizens of North America and Great Britain; they began at first to expect women to shave their armpits, and then to shave their legs. If you do a little research, the dominant theory is that this was due to changes in women’s fashions in the early 1900s – namely the introduction of sleeveless tops & shorter skirts. I don’t know – it seems a little too pat an answer for my dirty little mind to accept.

My theory is that this madness started with an apparently bored prostitute who decided to shave her legs and her armpits – be it for laughs or all in the name of niche marketing and customer service – her “clients” liked it, and a trend was started. Mind you, for quite a while, good girls (i.e., wives, sisters, mothers) left the hair where the Powers That Be put it, but Naughty Nelly was pushing the envelope. In fact, to add insult to injury, the little tart actually upped the ante & began to denude (I know, it sounds like an oxymoron) her naughty bits.

Now we’re in a more enlightened age, where women are edging closer and closer to equality in all areas of life, but we’re still stuck with the pain-in-the-ass task of hair removal from a large percentage of our bodies. And it’s not for medical reasons or religious regions, but because our society regards it as a grooming necessity, a must for sexual attractiveness and, hell, just part of one’s basic personal hygiene. The general opinion seems to be that hairlessness is next to cleanliness is next to godliness – translation: if it needs a shave, it must also need a good scrubbing. Sigh……

Naughty Nelly, you silly twit.

Now we’re stuck with finding the hair removal method that best meets our selection criteria: least painful, least expensive, the least inconvenient. The options follow, in no particular order or ranking. Just between you & me, I think Nelly’s got a whole lotta ‘splainin’ to do.

Let’s start with chemical hair removal via depilatories. You can spray ‘em on or smear ‘em on, but they’re all pretty messy (and smelly). They can even be a little painful, probably due to the chemicals that basically dissolve the hair right off the body. I have to wonder what those chemicals mean in terms of my carbon footprint, other than making it a little less wooly.

Then we move on to epilation – which is just a fancy way of saying there ain’t nothin’ quite like yanking hair out by the roots en masse. Remember the Epilady of several years ago? (Do they even still sell those little doohickies, you may ask. Yes, they do, and for what it’s worth, they do seem to have greatly improved upon the technology. I’m just not up for any product testing.) A friend of mine had purchased one of the early models and did her damnedest to use it, but she just couldn’t take it. She was angered/amused when her husband christened it the Epileptic Lady after watching one of her attempts at leg hair removal – one’s limbs seem to move of their own volition in response to the painful stimulus of dozens of hairs being forcibly removed almost simultaneously. My friend warned me of the contraption’s effects as she passed it on to me to try; she never wanted to see it again and told me to trash it if I didn’t like using it. I figured, “What the heck – I pluck my eyebrows & survive it, and the skin on my legs is tougher than the tender skin around my eyes – how much tougher can it be to yank leg hairs?” Now I'm the twit. I made it through a couple of passes from ankle to knee before I gave up – It. Hurt. Like. Hell. My leg felt like it was on fire and I nearly wet my pants. Imagine if I’d tried it on my underarms or, God forbid, my down-doobie-do-down-down; someone would’ve had to peel me off the ceiling and help me with a massive, messy clean-up. Bottom line: epilation was, for me, an epic fail.

Friction is a popular method of hair removal, and it does work, but it’s kind of messy in a construction site sort of way. You purchase a “handle” to which you attach what is basically a piece of fine-grit sandpaper, and you sand off that pesky hair – along with a few layers of skin. When all is said and done, those newly naked areas will be covered with a whitish powder, which is all those poor little skin cells that gave up the ghost for what you hope will be a sexy, shiny, smoothly hairless you. Just beware the potential for friction burn – you wanna be a hot mama, but the friction rash is no picnic.

And speaking of hot mamas, let’s move on to waxing. Now there’s a concept I believe even Osama bin Laden could get behind – hot wax slathered onto incredibly delicate areas, then ripped off, thereby removing the pesky hairs. Sounds like a form of torture, doesn’t it – something cruel and inhumane? Idiot that I am, I considered having a Brazil wax done as research for this blog, since I’ve only tried a “regular” bikini wax one time. Then I reminded myself how painful that “regular” was. Helloooo, there’s a reason it was a lone attempt! I’ve decided that the Lord giveth me hair down there for a good reason, so if He thinks I need to cultivate a cute little landing strip, He can taketh the hair away. It’s not as flashy a trick as a burning bush (if you'll pardon the pun) or turning someone into a pillar of salt, but I’d certainly utter, “Hallelujah & Amen!”

The original tried & true method, shaving, is both time-consuming and tough on the skin. And the cheapskate in me resents the fact that over the years you end up spending an arm & a leg on replacement blades for a good razor, i.e., one that leaves your skin intact. And I loathe shaving any part of my body in the wintertime; the chilly temps in my drafty bathroom result in goose bumps which, when shaved, morph into little bloody bumps. But if you don’t shave (or somehow remove the leg hair), that razor stubble under the bed sheets, combined with static electricity, can result in a surprisingly realistic imitation of the aurora borealis, with added audio – snap, crackle, yeow! [In a related note, I cannot for the life of me understand how some women can stand to shave their poor little coochie. I got really daring (or was it drunk?) and tried it one time, and believe me when I say this will NEVER happen again. The logistics are a nightmare; if you have any boobage whatsoever, it’s damned difficult to even see what you’re doing down there, which makes razor burn the LEAST of your worries. And the razor stubble as it grows back itches terribly – think baseball player readjusting ye olde jock strap while stricken with a mega-infestation of, er, crustaceans. It’s not a pretty or particularly ladylike sight to behold.]

In conclusion, I would state just for the record that I think we women have, once again, gotten the short end of the stick. (Like it wasn’t enough to deny womankind the ability to pee standing up?) So to even things up a little, the next time your honey-bunny complains about having to shave approximately one-third of his widdle face, offer to treat him to a professionally performed wax job that starts at shoulder level & ends with the fuzz on his big toes. And if possible, book the session with an esthetician named – what else? – Nelly. The bitch owes us big.

Tennis Lust & Squeaky-Clean Balls

Though the title suggests raunch, I promise this post has absolutely nothing to do with Shakira’s steamy new hoochie-coochie video, starring tennis hottie Rafa Nadal getting in touch with his inner porn star. (Be still, my percolating hormones!) No, these fevered ramblings are all about the lengths to which this tubby li’l tennis freak will go in order to satisfy her rediscovered tennis lust.

If you only know the older me, a little background may help. I played tennis competitively in my high school glory days. Well, glory days may be pushing it. High school was something to be endured, with its bitchy cliques and locker room nudity anxiety: are they too big, too small, did I de-fuzz everything that needed de-fuzzing? (Sing along: If you dare wear short shorts, Nair for short shorts. This to the accompaniment of that distinctive chemical odor as it dissolved hair, penetrated mosquito bites and probably removed a few layers of skin.) Fast forward many, many, many years later; I have 1 hubby, 2 kids, 2 cats and 1 large mortgage, along with a forty-something baggy-saggy bod. Somewhere in the midst of obtaining & maintaining all the trappings of adulthood, I’d misplaced my love of & lust for (ironically, since I’m lusting) the sport of monks.*

Screw that.

Armed with this attitude, I bought a new racket and a can of fluffy yellow balls, then took a lesson with a tennis pro at a local indoor tennis facility. I was a-huffin’ and a-puffin’ at the end of that lesson, but suffered no coronary catastrophes – sweet! Turns out that tennis is a lot like riding a bike: you don’t forget how to play, but you’ll need to kick off the rust to regain your mojo. For a true tennis freak, there’s nothing quite like the bounce-swing-thwack of a tennis workout. Forget the hot tub time machine – I can transport myself back in time nearly 3 decades by merely stepping foot on that hardcourt & letting it rip. So there I was, elbows-over-asshole in love all over again.

But then Reality, ever the party-pooper, reared its fugly head. Indoor court time (a must during the nasty winters here in Chicagoland) ain’t cheap at $20+ an hour, and in any season it can be tough to find another tennis freak whose schedule meshes with yours, so factor in ball machine rental. Total hourly cost of your fix: about $30. If you want to sate your lust several times a week, well, y’all can do the math. Crap.

But I would not be denied – frugality and lack of a winning lottery ticket shall never triumph over true love! What I needed was a ball machine, a portable one small enough to tote without painful herniation. Did I want a battery-op unit or one that requires an electric plug-in? (This is also a concern when buying, er, personal small appliances, but that’s a pervy post for another day.) Could I find a reliable one that would fit my tightwad budget? I compiled & crunched data, tabulated results and presented them to my darling hubby – who’s darling because he didn’t bust a gut laughing or give me the all-male “OK, what now?” eye roll (you know the one I’m talking about). The boy ain’t stupid; he’s learned a lot during our 20+ years of wedded bliss, or at least enough to accurately gauge the extent of my re-emerging tennis mania. One quick cost/benefit and ROI analysis, a quick web search, and my little object of lust was delivered via UPS (the Boys in Brown – I just love a man in uniform).

Again, Reality piddled in my corn flakes. As I sped through the instruction manual, one fact in particular jumped out at me: do not use new tennis balls in the machine. Apparently, the manufacturing residue and the bits of loose fuzz found on the new balls will gunk up the machine’s innards, ergo, one must feed it only used tennis balls. WHAT THE HELL?! Where am I gonna find 100+ used tennis balls? Not to mention the fact that I’d already purchased several dozen brand spanking new ones!

Now I’ve got balls on the brain.

I pondered my options feverishly – maybe I could buy old balls from that indoor tennis facility. Nope – duh, they need to keep their old balls for their own ball machines. I couldn’t think of any other source for old balls and I was dying to use my new toy, but I didn’t want to give it indigestion or full organ failure the first time I used it. Then it hit me – eureka! I could WASH my balls in my front loading, heavy duty washing machine! I’d just put them through a few rinse & spin cycles, then give them a tumble in the dryer on a low setting (didn’t wanna melt the fuzzy little bastards).

It worked! Truly, it was a sight to be seen – and heard. You just haven’t lived ‘til you’ve experienced the thunka-thunka-thud of dozens of tennis balls pinging around inside the stainless steel drum of your washer & dryer. It’s oddly rhythmic and soothing, maybe even musical, and the end result has been very satisfying. The laundered tennis balls don’t give my sweet little ball machine indigestion, or even the hiccups, and I get to feel like a kid again, satisfying my tennis lust while battling the dreaded middle-age spread. Truth be told, I may not have the finest footwork or the sweetest strokes on the tennis courts, but I’d bet the farm that I have the cleanest balls in all tennisdom!
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* Tennis as we know it is believed to have evolved from a game called paume, played by French monks in the 11th or 12th century. May this factoid someday help you kick ass at Jeopardy!

Don't Shoot 'Til You See the Whites...Above Their Eyes?

Holy crap! Just in time for my maiden blog post, my world has shifted on its axis, my equilibrium has been shattered, and I’m in full deny-it-and-it-doesn’t-exist mode. What could be of such import, of such gravity, could create such a kerfuffle in Dirty Old Broad Land? I just discovered a white hair in one of my eyebrows. And before you get all attitudinal with my seemingly self-absorbed answer, I never promised you a socially significant answer. (Frankly, if you crave a blog that’s going to serve up anything other than heaping helpings of forty-something attitude, peppered with the occasional profanity, move along; there’s nothing for you in DOBLand.)

As for the little white interloper, when I saw it waving gleefully at me, my mind flashed to memories of my Great-Grandpa Mensch, with his ginormous, white, caterpillar-fuzzy eyebrows. And don’t even ask me about what was growing out of his ears – pardon me while I throw a hissy fit. I think I’ve just suffered a head-on collision with my genetic destiny, and the airbag did not deploy.

I feel like ranting and raving at the universe: THIS IS NOT FAIR! I mean, is it not bad enough that I’ve tolerated white hairs populating my southern equatorial region – absolutely a pluck-free zone, thankyouverymuch – for the past few years? The only good news with them was that I could hide the little bastards from the general public, with only my darling hubby getting a viewing, and hey, he’ll gladly grin & bear it if he wants me to grin & bare it on a regular basis. But now they’ve gone from pubic to public in just a few short years – white hairs in the eyebrows!?? What the hell!

Of course I plucked that little sucker ASAP, which takes care of the problem for now, but I fear it’s only a temporary solution that will remain effective only if these white hairs continue to be merely an occasional occurrence (or should that be an eruption? an infestation? an amalgamation?). But this hoary happening does not bode well for the future. Imagine it – 10, 12, 15 and counting of the little buggers! And unless they’re evenly distributed throughout the brow, a plucking-only regimen means I could end up with bald spots, which methinks would be worse than just leaving the white hairs, from a purely esthetic perspective. If it gets to that point, should I just leave them alone and “age with dignity” (yeah, I got your dignity right here, sweetie), or should I start investigating other methods – the only other method I can think of being to dye my eyebrows?

Now there’s a great idea – chemicals applied to the eyebrows by little ol’ me, the woman who stubbornly refuses to trade her glasses for contacts because she can’t stand the idea of having a finger closerthanthis to her eyeball. Yep, it’s definitely a recipe for tragedy – it’s all fun & games ‘til somebody loses an eye!!! Of course, there is the alternative that involves me handing over my hard-earned (hardly there) money to a professional esthetician; I suppose not blinding myself would be worth a little time and moola, and my problem would be solved.

But speaking as one who overanalyzes everything, here’s the rub: is this really a problem, or is it just a vanity issue? In all other respects, my eyebrows are satisfactorily performing their functions: wiggling suggestively, frowning, quirking ala Mr. Spock when he opined, “Fascinating.” I can’t think of much else they’re supposed to do. Am I too vain if it bothers me that I could end up with strips of salt & pepper fuzz doing the wiggling, frowning and Spocking?
Certainly, I do other things to my eyebrows in the name of good grooming. For instance, I don’t consider it sheer vanity to pluck my eyebrows or have them waxed now & again to keep them looking shapely and sleek; in fact, given that I tend to be a little hirsute (damn that Mensch gene!), it seems like a necessity, unless I want to cultivate a “squirrels camping out on my forehead” look. (Though that is a look that could help me land a spot in a GEICO ad, or maybe a small walk-on role as a Klingon hottie in another Star Trek retread.)

OK, OK, maybe I should just tap the brakes here – in the grand scheme of things, perhaps worrying about these itty-bitty white hairs doesn’t mean I’m leaping into the narcissistic abyss (though an entire blog entry on the subject would suggest I’m teetering on the edge), and I’ll be able to take yet another step down the path to maturity with equanimity and acceptance. But mark my words: I can guarantee that the day this flippin’ Mensch gene rears its ugly head in the form of white hairs growing out of my ears or, God forbid, my nose (shudder), all bets are off. Equanimity? Ain’t gonna happen – more like a burst of belligerence leading to a plethora of profanity (I love that word, plethora), culminating in a screaming blue mimi fit worthy of a Dirty Old Broad. Cover your ears and pass the popcorn – it’ll be one hell of a show.