Harem Scarem

Yesterday I stayed up all day long even though every cell in my body was begging me to lie down and rest, for the love of Pete. But somewhere in my delirous, fatigued mind I figured that by staying up and cleaning house I'd either wear myself out enough that I'd finally sleep that night or else I'd land myself in the hospital. Fortunately/unfortunately, neither happened. I didn't sleep and I'm still at home. Good/bad, eh. Whatever. At this point, I'm so frickin' tired if Zach Braff came into my house and begged me to kiss his face I'd be like, "Eh, that would require like, so much energy" and I'm so not joking.

Yesterday I had done laundry all day, cleaned my kitchen, typed a blog post, screamed at my children to STOP TOUCHING EACH OTHER about 90000000000000000000 times and fixed dinner, so by about 7:00 last night I was really good and tired. The kids had already taken their showers, so I decided to be indulgent and take a long, hot shower, maybe shave my legs or at the very least my armpits. Because when you're sick and dizzy and your throat feels like it's on fire, armpit hair is pretty much the last thing on your mind. Trust me on this.

Now, here is where I should throw in a disclaimer: I am not perfect. I know, I know, this may be hard for some of you to grasp, (Okay, please know I'm holding back hysterical giggles as I type this. I'm really not this vain) but I really am quite imperfect. (Shhh, though - my 11 year old is the only one of my kids that has figured it out; the other two still think I'm awesome.) Part of my imperfection comes from the fact that I am hairy.

Yes, I just announced on my blog that I am hairy. I am a hairy blogging woman.

Just call me Chewbacca.

I wholeheartedly blame this on my father because he's a man and as a man, he is hairy, like a man should be. However, through some genetic mutation, or the fact he didn't have any sons, I got the hairy gene. Yay me. I won't go into overly gory details because you're probably already grimacing as it is, but let me share this story, an illustration of my hairiness, before I continue on with the story I originally set out to tell:

When Tater and Bub were dating, Paul and I went out to eat with them at Subway one afternoon. Bub was pretty quiet and didn't know us very well at that point. He was polite and nice, but not one to just overflow with conversation. We had finished eating and were sitting there talking - Paul and I across from Tater and Bub - when I put my elbows on the table and leaned my chin on my hands. It was at that point that Bub grabbed my arm and said, "Oh my gosh, did you know you have PUBIC HAIR on your arms?!?" Tater said, "You know, I had never really noticed it before, but yeah, Sis, it looks like you have pubic hair on your arms."

Sexxxxxy.

Needless to say, I wax. A lot. My dad bought me one of those EpiLady things back in the 90's - I like to think as a gesture of apology for giving me man-hair. Or maybe he's just twisted that way because as he handed it to me, he was laughing. As I get older, I have now branched out from just rampant arm hair and have started resembling Magnum PI. Yes, I have a lady-stache. I've discovered I am also part billy goat because I have chin hairs now, too. However, I can't blame those on my dad. They are entirely my fault - I made fun of Mom and Tater one too many times for having chin hairs and that bitch karma gave me some of my own.

Now, back to the story at hand: Last night as I shut the bathroom door in anticipation of a long, hot shower, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I managed to stifle the scream when I realized it was me staring at me and not Charles Manson. I have developed some serious black circles under my eyes from being sleepless and sick, my hair was wild and sorta mangey looking because my fever had broken during the day and I was sweating like a whore in church at one point and we all know what humidity of any kind does to my hair. I leaned in for a closer look and saw that what I had thought was a large furry caterpillar taking a nap on my forehead was instead my eyebrows. And yeah, Magnum PI was back in action.

I put off the hot shower and grabbed the wax strips and tweezers. I cannot believe my husband gave me a hug when he got home from work. I'm not sure I could've hugged something as scary as I was last night. Bless his heart - I think he really loves me. So as a gesture to him, I decided to rid my hair of all excess body hair - brows, lip, chin, arms and legs - all in one mighty de-furring event and I would emerge from the bathroom decidedly more human - and female. The things we do for those we love, eh?

I plucked my eyebrows first. I don't wax them because eyebrows are far too important to accidently take the whole thing off due to an unfortunate hiccup or something. Plucking is safer where eyebrows are concerned. I tamed them into two somethings decidedly less likely to tuck themselves into a cocoon and emerge as a butterfly. I then moved onto the lip.

I rubbed the wax strip between my hands in order to warm it enough to pull it apart into two magical wax strips, laid the extra strip on the counter and began the business at hand. I am a very efficient waxer. I do it fast because if I stop to think about what I'm doing, I will start crying at the amount of pain I am about to inflict on myself and I will stop. So here's how it goes - place strip, rubrubrub, stick tongue up into lip so you look like you're storing an acorn or two up there, close eyes, pull, wince, dance around, then hold the strip up to see the hair you just removed from your lip. It's a routine I am familar with. And I move quickly to the other side because I just caused an inordinate amount of pain and am about to do it again - I must hurry before I walk around with half a 'stache because I wimped out of waxing.

Except remember where I said I looked like Charles Manson? Focus not so much on the crazy eyes here, but instead on the crazy hair. Oh yeah, and have I also mentioned that my ears are also stopped up and as a result I am occasionally stricken dizzy like I've been on the TiltAWhirl while drunk? Oh I haven't? Well, let me just say that fluid in my ears doesn't have concern for what I'm doing at any given time - it just moves when it wants, whether I'm moving or not. The result is that I look like I'm three sheets to the wind and about to have a gran mal seizure.

Drunken seizures and wax strips do not mix.

Rather than go on about the words I muttered, the curses I swore and the tears I cried, just let it be known that keeping a pair of little bitty scissors in the bathroom is a good idea so that no one else in your house has to know that you just had to cut a really hairy wax strip out of the hair on your head.