caveat emptor: painful blog ahead...

I celebrated Summer Solstice today by getting a bikini wax. Nothing says 'summer' quite like having hair ripped out. The thing is, I hadn't even recovered from Tuesday's spin class before choosing this special brand of hell. Let me explain: see, I'm going to Mexico tomorrow which means I'll be wearing a bathing suit. I got skin the color of chalk (thanks, Apes) and I didn't want to give the other beachgoers more to gawk at so I decided to take care of some business.

I called last week to make the appointment. Do you want a Brazilian? Umm, no ma'am, I do not. I most certainly do NOT. Okay, well, how much do you want taken off? (This isn't the kind of question I want to be answering in public, which I was.) I guess you could call it a mohawk of sorts, I explained. Okay well, that's a Brazilian - she says - it's anytime you get anything taken off the sides. Okay, well, by that definition, fine, but I'd like to be clear that I'm not the Bruce Willis type.

That was last week. Tonight I go in, and I'm greeted by my aesthitician, a round Russian woman with just enough of that stoic glint in her eyes to let me know I was done for. So I'm in the room, yada yada yada, and she's asking me for details. I explain to her what I said to the receptionist. My guess is that bikini-waxing artists (is that what they call them?) know no middle ground. It's either the Amazon or the Sahara, and nothing in between. The negotiations were painful. For the most part I sucked it up as best I could. When I let out a cry she asked me if I was ticklish. Yes, I *always* yelp when I'm tickled. Anyway, so I'm getting side one done, and I'm thinking that I need to write a living will and then we're ready for side two. It's either a curse or a blessing that we have two sides. Somehow, I made it through, without an epidural, holding on to the hair as if it were my dignity. And then -- AND THEN -- she says: Okay turn around, let's get behind. Ohhh hell no.

Kids, vanity doesn't pay.