Winner By a Hair

As I march toward the future and age exercises its steady and firm grasp on my life, I find myself progressively looking for ways to detour its progress.  Its like I am standing behind a dike and bit by bit leaks are sprouting all along it.  Desperate to stop the flow of water I place my fingers in the holes, then my toes.  Right before me a huge hole opens and with no appendage left I open my my mouth, pick up a wad of cash and smash it into the increasing gap.  

We all have things we hate about our own bodies.  In a cruel twist of fate the powers of the universe or, perhaps it was my grandfather's fault, wrapped hair frustratingly into my genetic code.  No, not hair in the good places like on my head.  Oh no, why would I want hair there?  It would only serve to shade my scalp from the sun and conceal the raw sexiness of my rounded skull.  As it is I have a built in oven I could fry an egg on in the summer if I wanted.  No, my grandfather willed me a bald head and hair in the most frustrating places.  It didn't show at first and looking back I can't remember being hairy as a young man.  No, my grandfather's contribution to my life was far more insidious.  It did not present itself until my 20's and early 30's.  Bit by bit like a lycanthrope changing form, I found my back and shoulders hairy.  Of course hair growing in odd places is a normal part of growing old as a man.  It grows from the ears and bushes out the nose. It over takes once perfectly formed eyebrows with hairs as course as a pigs bristle. It grows every place you don't want it and is no where to be found where you do.

I have been told there are women in the world that love a hairy man.  Setting aside my wife who like all wives tolerates whatever is her man, I have yet to find one.  Perhaps it is simply a myth.  Or maybe, it was a woman sleeping next to her dog in bed and thinking it was a man.  Perhaps it is a person in the frozen Russian north that wears her man like a coat.  Wow... come to think of it, I would like to meet her.

So there I was, a  man in his forties looking at himself in the mirror and wondering if just once in his life he could afford to be vain.  Much to my wife's chagrin I decided I could.  So with vanity in my heart I commenced researching laser hair removal.  The internet is filled with contradictions and this subject was not immune.  Whatever you wanted to think you could find it.  Everyone had a preference.  One laser did this, one technique that.  Nothing made sense yet it all did at the same time.   I found a clinic where I live and sent them an email.  Oh why not I thought, maybe I will discover something.  At the very least I will answer a question or two.  A very nice woman named Kathy wrote me back.  She didn't call  me.  She didn't nag me.  She didn't push me, she didn't sell me.  She simply answered a few questions.  I liked her.

I am terrified of phones and the reasons deserve a blog entry in their own right.  Suffice it to say that whenever the phone rings some one is on the other side and they always want something.  So time passed and I saved my money.  I traded a few more emails and finally summoned the nerve to schedule an appointment.

The night before I had to convince myself to set aside my pride and ask my wife for her assistance.  It was the kind of humiliation that is often only tolerable as a result of 20+ years of marriage.  The kind that lets you burp and fart with impunity.  In my dinosaur boxer shorts I stood in a bath tub and asked her to shave me.  It was like being at a stylist with no style.  A mound of body hair collected at my feet.  I examined myself in the mirror and suggested places to take a little more off.  With one fell swoop she went across the top of my chest.  I turned to the mirror and immediately noticed I looked like I was wearing a hairy bra.  "Oh great!"  I thought, now this is really going to be humiliating. 

I took a shower and as I emerged my son walked into the bathroom.  "What is this, frigging Grand Central Station?"  I thought.  I pulled a towel over myself but quickly realized he was there not out of friendliness but out of morose curiosity.  Like a child caught doing something he shouldn't I lowered the towel and was met by a laugh.    "I like you hairy."  he said.  "What did you do to your chest?"

In a futile attempt to mitigate my own humility I sent a short email to Kathy.  I described my condition and she reassured me not to worry, she had seen it all.  I would imagine she probably has yet I was reminded of the dermatologist I once had in Bolivia who while after removing some kind of fungal pimple from my body, looked at me amazed and asked if he could photograph my back.  I agreed.  To this day I probably exist in a photo album of medical curiosities.  The bastard should have given me a discount.

The night before my adventure into the unknown world of non invasive aesthetic procedure my son came to me to say good night.  He picked up a pair of glasses on my night stand that I hadn't worn for years and put them on my face.  Standing back he examined me.  "You look odd Pop but I like it, it reminds me of my younger Pop." 


Filled with trepidation I made my appointment the next day.  I am not sure what I expected, perhaps I thought the technician would be a babushka the likes last seen in the days of the East German Republic.  Instead I was greeted by an attractive woman who shared my age and looked a thousand times better.  Well since I was not seeking SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) perhaps this is a good thing.

I immediately flashed on thoughts I had experienced at dentists office.  A cute hygienist would be working on me and I would wonder if she was checking me out.  Only then would I see myself from their perspective.  I was a man with a spit tube coming out of his mouth and lips that looked like a bottom sucker fish attached to a window.

Not Really Me....

This beautiful woman would be the one that would defoliate me.  In minutes I would lose my hair virginity to her.  She was extremely reassuring and like an easy woman on her fourth martini at a bar, I found myself shirtless on a stool with a woman shaving my back.  This time it was a pink camo razor that seemed to meld masculinity with femininity in a disturbing yet oddly appropriate way.  How many men in this world could claim to have their backs shaven by two women inside of 16 hours?  I was now in an elite few.

Just when I was regaining my composure and sucking in my gut I was brought back to earth.  From a hidden spot on a nearby shelf a spindle style masking tape hair remover emerged.  It was the kind I use to pick up my dog's hair from the couch or lint my shirt.  Moments later, it was linting me.

Helpless and at my own bidding I laid front down on a bed and the beautiful Kathy went about her task.  The smell of burning hair soon filled the room reminding me of a curling iron gone terribly array.  Flashes of light darted off my eyelids as if a welder was torching me.   I could only imagine how she must have looked with her dark glasses to shade the light.  I probably looked like James Bond minus the looks laying strapped to a bench while a diabolical villain tortured him.  What would her name be... not Goldfinger or Pussy Galore, perhaps  Laser Finger.  There was little discomfort in the process and in an odd way it was almost relaxing. Was I really some kind of closet masochist?

There is a game called six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.  Basically the quest is to see if you can tie yourself to the prolific actor in some way within six matches.  Oh I have that one beat.  He made a movie across the street from my office and drove right in front of me.  In this case while defoliating me, Kathy told me she was from New Orleans, Louisiana.  Hmmm... I thought to myself, my grandfather the likely cause of my genetic misery was from Shreveport, Louisiana.  Perhaps this was a clear case of Louisiana giving it and Louisiana taking it away.  Hah... damn you Grandfather and your genetic code, I have Laser Finger!

Laser Finger!

She's the woman, the woman with the lightning touch

It hurts so much

Such a cold finger

Beckons you to enter her chair of sin

But don't go in

Laser bolts will touch your skin

But her words can't disguise what you fear

For a laser girl knows when she's arched 

It's the burn of death ...

From Miss Laser Finger

Pretty girl, beware of her heart of light

It burns so bright. 

I'll smell the hair tonight