Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Waxing Philosophic, Part Three: Color Me Embarrassed
I am not someone who is easily embarrassed. I mean, please – I’ve been waxing on about my vagina for the last three days. That said, I have had some waxing experiences that have left me scrambling for my panties and my dignity.
I grew up in the infamous valley of Martha Coolidge’s 1983 film classic, Valley Girl. Like totally, fur sure. In my early twenties, after swearing off college for a few years to pursue my babysitting career, I decided, much to the relief of my parents, to finish my formal education, or at least get a BA in something. I was accepted to UC Riverside, about seventy miles east-ish of my totally rad digs in the Valley. I moved myself to Riverside, with roommates and everything, and drove back to LA nearly every weekend. On these weekend sojourns I would make money babysitting and spend it swing dancing. I would also schedule appointments to see my regular bikini waxer, Christina. She, like totally, worked in the mall. It was like awesomely convenient, and Christina knew her stuff.
One day in Riverside, I got an invitation from a classmate, a cute, male classmate to go to the beach on a Saturday. “Um, yes. Ok. Great! Yeah, I’d love to. Thanks.” After accepting the invitation, I realized that I would not make it to LA to see Christina before the beach trip. The horrors! I decided the best option would be to find some one locally to help me keep my swimsuit from revealing too much on a first date. I mean, all I wanted was a regular ol’ bikini wax. How hard could that be? Heh.
When I arrived at the salon, a strip mall getup that was buzzing in a gossipy Steele Magnolia’s kind of way, I was informed that the woman I had spoken to on the phone would not be able to see me. Instead, a girl about my age led me back to the small waxing room. She looked at me as a reluctant prostitute might look at a fat, ugly john – a fat, ugly john with a vomitously pungent odor. Her disdain was palpable. I should have left then.
After I stripped out of my jeans and tried to make myself comfortable in what felt like a dentist’s chair, Waxing Girl, whose name and face I have thankfully forgotten, timidly looked at my crotch. Her touch was even more timid than her look as she gingerly spread wax on a very small square of my skin. It soon became painfully (quite literally painfully) apparent that this woman had little or no experience waxing anything at all, let alone another woman’s pubic hair. Once the small patch of skin was covered in wax, that was not quite hot enough to spread comfortably, she reached for a small piece of paper. “What’s that?” I questioned.
“Oh, it’s a curling paper.”
“Curling paper?
“You know, you put it around the curler when you’re doing a perm. We find it works well for taking off the wax.”
Really? How does one find that? “Oops, I was perming your hair and one of the papers happened to fall on your wax-covered crotch, and eureka!” I mean, forget Archimedes and his stinkin’ bathtub; these ladies were on to something! Or not. Using her index figure, Waxing Girl pressed the thin curling paper into the nearly dry wax on the skin just above my femoral artery. She gently rubbed the area for a moment and then pulled the edge of the paper leaving my skin covered in wax and strips of torn paper. “Really, you find this works better?”
Waxing girl and I were locked in that small room for what seemed like hours (Christina would have had me in and out in 20 minutes). I think she even ducked out to ask for advice at one point. I thought about standing up and saying, “Just forget it,” as I figured out a way not to get wax on my jeans, but then what would I do to prepare for my beach date? I don’t know why shaving didn’t occur to me – it couldn’t have been any more painful and annoying – but it didn’t.
The conversations that punctuated our silences were brief and infrequent. “Um, could you give me something to use to try and get the wax off of my sleeve?”
“Oh, whoops.”
During these silences we heard the pick-a-little-talk-a-little ooze under the door from the main part of the salon. We also heard the excited utterances of children at play; someone had brought her children, presumably to increase the noise level in the already bustling salon. Generous. Normally, I would have welcomed an interruption to my misery, but the one that ultimately came was far from desirable. Suddenly, and without warning, the children became louder as the door to the waxing room swung open violently.
As if in a tableau, we all froze – me spread eagle on my back, Waxing Girl with her face in my crotch and her hand on my hip, and the thirteen year-old boy framed by the small doorway. I held my breath and looked at Waxing Girl. We were the dear and he was the headlights. “Riley! Close that door, and get your butt over here!” Slam! I never thought I would be happy to be alone with Waxing Girl. Now I wished to stay with her, with the door closed, at least until the permanently scarred boy and his negligent mother left.
I got my wish. When we finally emerged from the torture chamber, me with slightly less hair than I had when we began, the children were gone. I felt red from head to toe as I imagined that everyone in the salon had caught a glimpse of me sans pants. Waxing Girl delivered me to the salon owner to pay and started to walk back towards her lair. I began to pull out whatever amount of money it was that I had agreed to over the phone when the owner hollered to Waxing Girl, “What kind of wax did you do?”
Waxing Girl had that fawn-like stare again, so I butt in, “Just a regular bikini wax.” The owner must have heard me, but she pretended I didn’t exist and yelled to Waxing Girl, over the heads of the other customers, “How much hair was it.” She then turned to me for the first time, and explained that they had different prices depending on the quality and thickness of one’s pubic hair. Go ahead. Put that in your add. Waxing Girl’s eyes got even bigger as she tried to describe the quantity and quality of my hair. Didn’t everyone freakin’ see my hair when that Ritalin-lacking kid barged in on me? Ultimately we agreed on a price. I consider it hush money; I paid her to hush up her obstreperous analysis of my vaginal hair growth patterns.
I left feeling ashamed. How dare I ask someone to perform a service that they advertise? How dare I have more than two pubic hairs? How dare I get upset when my clothing gets wax on it? What kind of freak am I? I think I went home and tried to repair the damage as best I could with tweezers and olive oil. Sadly, I wore shorts to the beach. I, like totally, should have driven back to the Valley. Christina would have beat that little boy’s ass. Waxing Girl’s, too. No charge.Labels: rant, wax
tidbit posted by Mosa @ 4:49 PM
