Fur is Murder

This morning I went to the dentist, got two fillings done and it was entirely uneventful (except that I drooled a little bit on my dress and was too lazy to change when I swung by the house to pick up my lunch before driving to work so am currently trying to sit in such a way that I hide the slobber spot) but it DID remind me that the Saturday before my wedding, I did something even more painful: I got waxed. For the first time. In places other than my eyebrows. And I have opinions.

Before you go thinking this even MORE of an over share than usual, I didn’t get the whole shebang done. Despite the encouragement of most of my female friends, I resisted popular opinion and opted for my thighs and bikini line instead of getting a landing strip in the shape of Harry Potter’s scar. It began harmlessly enough with my eyebrows. I chatted with my waxer, Alice, about the wedding. She was cute, not overly-perky, and had a big fake hibiscus behind her right ear. What a coincidence? I also like big fake flowers. We bonded over being chubby and avoiding buying pants until our old ones have holes and how I would likely reward myself with ice cream after my waxing appointment. Alice and I were thick as thieves. Until she stole my pubic hair.

I dropped trou, preparing myself for what I understood would not be a pleasant experience. The first rip wasn’t as bad as I had expected. I thought to myself “I can handle this. I’ve been through worse.” Over the next hour, that would prove to be a terrible, terrible lie. I can honestly say that it was worse than all three of my tattoos combined at the same time. PLUS, unlike the tattoo parlor, there wasn’t a TV playing Labyrinth in the background. Instead, she dimmed the lights and we listened to Sounds of the Ocean: Volume IV on loop. I’m sure it was meant to be soothing but I couldn’t wrap my head around the dichotomy. It would be like playing Enya on the set of Saw. Waves calmly lapping against the shore and getting the hair ripped out of your crotch just don’t go together. It took me DAYS on the honeymoon to stop cringing when we walked on the beach.

What else could I do but attempt to control the volume of my voice during our idle banter and not yell “I WILL KILL YOU” when she asked about my wedding dress. I kept my furiously perspiring hands tightly clasped on my stomach to keep myself from giving in to instinct and begin hitting the person causing me so much pain. In addition to controlling myself, the wet spot under my profusely sweating palms was growing and I stressed about hiding it from this woman with a terrible fake tan who had already seen my ugliest pair of underwear and parts of my lady bits. But the anxiety gave me something to think about other than holding her down and pulling out her fingernails so I accepted it.

To keep myself distracted I made a mental list of those responsible for my situation: I cursed my own propensity for fuzziness. I cursed my genetic information for giving me the fuzzy phenotype. I cursed my parents for those genes. I cursed Italy for my fuzzy heritage. I cursed all of the Mediterranean just to be on the safe side. I cursed my bathing suits and I cursed Old Navy for not having any board shorts in my size that week. I cursed the fashion industry for insisting that females be bald everywhere but their heads. I cursed every dollar I’d spent in support of that industry and I cursed every goddamn Vogue I’d ever read. Then I squinted and I cursed Alice in my mind so vehemently that she caught my eye and started looking scared. So, I stopped playing that game.

But. It. Kept. Going. I ran out of clever little things to think about and my jaw started hurting from grinding my teeth. The sweat spot was out of control. I’d already memorized every detail of the neon painting of a Caribbean beach landscape on the wall and had already drafted a mean letter to the artist in my head belittling his talent. I searched the walls for something else to focus on. Mere feet from the painting was Alice’s waxer certificate. From mid-April. You know when the camera rushes in on a focal point really quickly in a movie and you can tell the main character must be shitting his pants? That’s sort of what it was like. Just then Alice asked “Did you want to do the back of your legs too?” and I responded a little too quickly with an unnaturally high voice “NOTHANKS.ITHINKI’MALLSET.”

In a thinly veiled attempt to restore my karma after an hour of homicidal thoughts, I tipped well despite the fact that I was walking like I’d been riding a horse all day, had wax stuck to my pants, and, as I later found out, still had plenty of patches that she’d missed, making me resemble not a blushing bride but a mangy dog.

So, yeah, I have opinions. Here's one: cavities are more fun than waxing appointments.