I’m incredibly sick today, so please pardon me for being lazy and bringing this old post back. I thought that it was hilarious.
This post might be rated a little PG-13, so, if there are little children near the computer, please click on the video to the right to watch that instead and then come back another day. Ahem. All adults in the room? Okay, here goes. I have a bucket list. It’s a little list that I made last year with some things that I’d love to do before I die. We should all have one, no matter how old we are.
My list isn’t particularly elaborate because there are things that I actually plan on doing and not just some pie in the sky dreams that I will reach for, but won’t actually attain. The plan is to be able to check one or two off every year. As I get older and discover something else that I would like to do, it might grow. But for now, it’s a neat little list. Keep this in mind when I tell you this story.
I get my eyebrows threaded. For the men in the room, and some of you women, threading is the Indian method of hair removal. They hook a thread around the hair or hairs and tug them out. Yes, it can get painful, but it is remarkably precise and I get a really sharp looking brow from having them threaded. I go to a small salon which was pretty empty since it’s in the business section of midtown Manhattan on a Saturday. There were five of us in the salon: three ladies that work there, me and another customer. I popped into the chair with my usual person to get my brows done as the other customer went to one of the rooms where they perform body waxing. Fellas (and some ladies) waxing is where they put a hot item, usually wax but sometimes sugar, on the area where you would like to have hairs removed; apply a cloth to the wax, allow the wax to cool a little, and then tug the wax off your skin with the hairs coming out in the process. Some women wax their eyebrows. Some women wax their legs. Some women wax their nether regions. Well, this lady must have been doing the latter. Here’s what I heard from my chair:
Woman: “Arrrrrrrrrrgh! Oh my God! Is it supposed to hurt like that?!” (heavy panting)
Worker: “Is this your first time?”
Woman: “Yes. Is that normal?”
Worker: “Oh yes, the first time it hurts, but it gets better the next time.”
Woman: Screams. “Holy shit? People do this all the time?”
Worker: “Yes, every 2 weeks. If you come back regularly there’s less hair, so it won’t hurt so much. Do you want a little baby power?”
Woman: “Baby powder? I need like, 3 Advil.”
Meanwhile, I sat in the chair getting my brows done laughing my head off. To her credit the girl doing my brows assured me that it was this lady’s first appointment and that it’s usually not that bad. Now, back to the bucket list. Bucket list item number 31 is to get a Brazilian. A Brazilian, my friends, is not some hot young Latin man that I want to tie to my bed, a la Madonna. No, no, no! A Brazilian is a special kind of waxing that is done below the belt where every single hair is removed. Every. Single. Hair. No, wait. You do get to choose a uhm, decorative amount of hair to be left for uhm, visual interest. This is where you might have heard the term “landing strip” or the “Charlie Chaplin”. Otherwise, every single hair between the belt and hip is removed.
Now, hearing this woman’s distress made me think of my bucket list item. Do I really want to subject myself to that? Heck yes! You only live once and pain is fleeting, so why the hell not? I know that you’re wondering what the hell this has to do with personal finance but the whole point of getting out of debt is to live the life that you want to live and do the things that you want to do. Well, before I die, this is one thing that I will do. In fact, I’m sure that I’ll be on pain medication before I go just to help. Ladies, if you’ve ever had this done or given birth, I have to give you -as the kids say- mad props. And before the guys start calling us women crazy, plenty of men wax too.
I stuck around reading a magazine to see the other customer. She came out of the room smartly dressed but walking like a person that had ridden its first cow. Did I change my mind? Nope, it’s still something that I want to do, but not that day.