The Things We Women Do...

Following a much needed evening with one of my gal pals, quite possibly supplemented by adult beverages, and during which we found ourselves discussing some of the awful things we women go through in order to maintain our outer beauty for the sake of remaining attractive to men... she sent me the story that can be found below.

It is almost EXACTLY the same story that I found myself recounting to my girlfriend during that particular lovely liquid enhanced conversation that sent us into waves upon waves of howling laughter. 

Seriously. It was like someone had transcribed MY description of my own personal adventure with a package of green depilatory bikini wax and a 10 gallon tub of expensive olive oil during a vacation stay a boyfriend's aunt home on Christmas Eve. (An actual story I MAY recount for you but at another time). 

It is SCARY how much the story below is similar to my particular experience. I don't know WHY I am even admitting this, but I am. Don't judge me.

Being a woman is MUCH harder than it looks. I assure you!!!

Here's the story (It is MUCH funnier a story if you haven't actually lived it yourself.)

I repeat, this is NOT my story. It may not even be true. But I'm guessing someone has had this actually happen to them (apart from me). You simply can't make stories like this up: 

"ADVENTURES IN HAIR REMOVAL"

All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of easy, painless removal - The Epilady, scissors, razors, sugaring, depilatory creams like Nair, and of course...the wax. Read on......

My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: 'Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet.'

So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. It was one of those 'cold wax' kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off.

No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!)

So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. ('Cold wax,' yeah...right!) I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works!

OK, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me!

I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire.

With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet.

Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek (it was a long strip). I inhale deeply and brace myself... RRRRIIIPPP!!!!

I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!....OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!!

Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP! Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted.

I think I may pass out.....must stay conscious...must stay conscious. Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe...OK, back to normal.

I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. 

I hold up the strip!

There's no hair on it.

Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX???

Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip... it's not! I touch. I am touching wax.

I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake... remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet? I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down.

Sealed shut! My butt is sealed shut. Sealed shut!

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself 'Please don't let me get the urge to poop".

My head may pop off! What can I do to melt the wax?

Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand, into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right??? 

WRONG!!!!!!!

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit.

Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub... in scalding hot water.

Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax.

So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!!

I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter. 'So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!'

There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me.

She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, 'Are we talking cheeks or hoo-ha?'

She's laughing out loud by now . I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box.

YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else's night.

While we go through various solutions. I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better than to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!! 

By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event.

My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace....the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax.

What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY GOD!!!!!!! The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. It's sooo painful, but I really don't care.

IT WORKS!!

It works !! I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair... THE HAIR IS STILL THERE.......ALL OF IT! So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point.

Next week I'm going to try hair color......

Stories from the Doctor's Office.

Quite a few years ago, I had just the BEST "woman's" doctor. The doctor was a man but always went the extra mile to make me feel more comfortable by telling jokes and stories of some of his adventures as a doctor. 

Have you ever found yourself laughing while a doctor is "examining" you? It's a VERY odd experience at first but with time it actually was something to look forward to. He had hysterical stories of misadventures, misunderstandings and such and always made me laugh.

He told a great story about how on a particularly cold winter day, a young child was playing with his mom's pots and pans in the kitchen, put his head in a pot and had a screw holding the handle come loose, trapping his head from the nose up, inside the pot. The mom, not wanting the child to catch a cold on the way to the emergency room to get the pot removed from her child's head, carefully put a Montreal Canadiens tuque (winter hat) OVER the pot. The doctor's description of the sight of this poor child being dragged blindly with this pot and tuque on his head into the emergency room waiting room was enough to still have me giggling about it 20+ years later. 

To this day, when it is THAT time of year, even though I sadly no longer have that doctor, I am reminded of some of the stories he told. 

I few years ago while surfing the web, I came across a story similar in nature to ones that my doctor shared with me  which makes me wonder if (A) he made all those stories up or (B) maybe he was the actual doctor in this story. 

Let me make this clear. This is NOT my story. I swear! I'm not even certain if it is a true story, but I do know that it made me laugh and therefore I felt the need to share it with you ...

"THE WASHCLOTH"

I was due for an appointment with the gynecologist later in the week.

Early one morning, I received a call from the doctor's office to tell me that I had been rescheduled for that morning at 9:30 am.

I had only just packed everyone off to work and school, and it was already around 8:45 am.

The trip to his office took about 35 minutes, so I didn't have any time to spare.

As most women do, I like to take a little extra effort over hygiene when making such visits, but this time I wasn't going to be able to make the full effort.

So, I rushed upstairs, threw off my pajamas, wet the washcloth that was sitting next to the sink, and gave myself a quick wash in that area to make sure I was at least presentable

I threw the washcloth in the clothes basket, donned some clothes, hopped in the car and raced to my appointment. I was in the waiting room for only a few minutes when I was called in.

Knowing the procedure, as I'm sure you do, I hopped up on the table, looked over at the other side of the room and pretended that I was in Paris or some other place a million miles away.

I was a little surprised when the doctor said,

"My, we have made an extra effort this morning, haven't we?"

I didn't respond.

After the appointment, I heaved a sigh of relief and went home. The rest of the day was normal . Some shopping, cleaning, cooking.

After school when my 6 year old daughter was playing, she called out from the bathroom, "Mommy, where's my washcloth?" I told her to get another one from the cupboard.

She replied, "No, I need the one that was here by the sink, it had all my glitter and sparkles saved inside it."

NEVER going back to that doctor ever, ever, ever!!

Letter from the Tooth Fairy

This was an actual email from THE Tooth Fairy (nudge nudge wink wink) to my Nephew Oliver in early Nov 2011...

Dear Oliver,

I meant to leave you a note last night under the pillow but it was dark and I couldn't find anything to write with or on, without waking up your family.

So I found your mother & father's email addresses on the internet and decided to send you a quick note today instead because I have so many stops tonight for children who lost teeth today, that I wasn't sure I would be able to make it back by your bed tonight to leave you a proper letter.

I wanted to let you know that I couldn't find your tooth last night but left you a little money anyways because I know how careful you are with your teeth and what good care you take of them brushing every night.

(although I know that you sometimes cheat a little when you don't brush long enough) 

I also know that your mother usually leaves me a nice little note asking if I could let her keep your baby teeth because she loves you and all your little parts so much.

And because you are such a good boy and your mom is so nice, I make an exception for you all the time.

But since this time I didn't find the tooth I thought maybe you forgot or maybe you just didn't believe in me anymore.

Things have changed a lot since your mother and father were children so I thought I would also let you know how we do things at the tooth factory these days.

We now have a REALLY cool automated electronic warning system to let us know when someone is close to losing a tooth.

This way we know we are going to have to schedule a visit soon.

Then another alarm goes off when the child actually loses the tooth so that we know that it is time to make a stop by their house and take a look under the pillow.

I was very pleased when I heard you had lost another wonderful white baby tooth. You are growing up just so quickly!

But there is a problem with our machine because it doesn't always tell us HOW the tooth is lost. So when we don't see the tooth under the pillow, we usually find out only a few days later that the tooth was lost because of an accident and it got lost in the dirt, or even swallowed by the child. 

Sometimes the tooth gets taken out by the dentist and we don't actually get it until much later and then we have to fill out all this paper work.

And when that happens, we usually have to wait to be sure before we leave money under the pillow. BUT since I have been coming to collect YOUR beautiful little white teeth since you were just a little boy, when I didn't see the tooth under the pillow, I knew that there had to be a really good reason.

So I decided to leave money for you anyways because you have always been so good with your teeth. But you'll need to do me a little favor. Can you either take a photo of your tooth and send it to me at this email address OR put it under your pillow for the next few nights so that I can verify it. 

My schedule is SO full since kids are losing teeth on Halloween candy this week, I might not get to your house to see the tooth until the weekend.

We need to be careful with our accounting these days and make sure we are not paying too much for bad teeth. You wouldn't believe how many rotten teeth we get these days.

So if you could do that for me that would be great.

Also, if you can do me another little favor... Can you help Maya brush her teeth too every night?

You've done such a good job with yours and when you don't have any more baby teeth to give me, I'd still like to come and keep collecting Maya's baby teeth too.

But if she doesn't brush as often and as well as you do, they won't be as nice and they might get rotten and I won't be able to leave her money or come visit anymore.

Do you think you can do that for me?

Thank you again for all your lovely white teeth Oliver. 

It makes being a tooth fairy a LOT more fun when I get to see such beautiful white teeth like yours.

Take care of them now that you are a big boy!

I love you and all your teeth!

Your Tooth Fairy