Pain, oh the Pain
Believe the Hype. When you watch Steve Correll yell in pain in his Oscar-worthy performance playing that mal-adjusted virgin as thousands of roots are wrenched from his body in a single stroke, know that it's all too accurate. When I was a young and stupid kid I remember saying to my friends how I wanted some chest and facial hair so I could be all big and manly. Well God definitely got the last laugh on that one as he balanced the Universe by making up for the 1 billion hairless chinese entirely on my body. I remember the naive joy as I yelped in my cracking voice as that first bits of hair showed up on my stomach. And then like the locusts of the Bible, or the marauding Mongolians, the dark terror didn't stop. Ever. There were times I thought I could fight it off, like when I saw that first long curly bastard sprout on my shoulder. Pluck pluck it went, and straight out of Fantasia it was replaced by two others... and then four others. You know how that ends, unfortunately for me I can't take off the wizard's hat.
Not without ripping my own head off anyway, well that's what it felt like. So after all these years I decided to go through it with and get it waxed off my back. Actually it wasn't so much a decision as kind of getting gently pushed into it. The disturbing aspect of it all is that I think my mom really enjoyed the whole experience getting me back for the whole 9 months thing I imagine. As I lay there curled up slowly sobbing into my hands after she performed a particularly long strip she'd sneakily come in and do some left over patches nice, quick and deadly, like the original arabian assassins. She's not hopped up on hash though. I should've been that's for sure. It wasn't so much as her ripping the hair out, as it felt like she was placing a white-hot iron on my skin, 50 times over.
Now was it worth it? Enh. I never really had a problem with the aesthetics of it all. And my back now joins the soles of my feet as the hairless parts of my body. However, taking that first shower and feeling my shoulders, and I mean really feeling them, as I haven't felt the skin on those things in years now, I had to smile. It's like when you first get your braces off and your teeth are finally free. People that have gone through that know the kind of satisfying liberation that is felt. It's kind of the same thing here. But does this doom me to a life of golden pain every few times a year? Will I get curious and try my chest? My legs? I mean, it sounds crazy now, but once you've gone down that rabbit hole it's just a matter of inches. One thing I know for sure is I'm making the most of what I've done and going shirtless for the next month.
