CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING POST IS MOST DEFINITELY WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION FOR MOST PEOPLE. IN FACT, IT IS EVEN WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION FOR ME. WHICH IS WHY I NEED TO WRITE ABOUT IT.

Disclaimer noted. Let’s begin.

Katsumi and I are going to Maine this weekend. I am going to LA the week after that. Hence, I needed a wax. asap.

I didn’t start calling spas until 5:30 this afternoon. Most spas close at 6 on Friday nights, so I was a little late in the running. Every spa was booked through next Wednesday, except for this one salon, which shall remain nameless, where the phone was answered by a woman with a heavy accent,\ who said that I could come right in. There was much shrieking in the background. Perhaps that should have been my first clue.

So I head over, and after a great deal of waiting Sophia, the waxer, tells me that she has set up the room but she has to leave. A drop of pity glistens in her eye. Someone else will take care of me. Perhaps that should have been my second clue.

Presently, I am confronted by a wizened Greek woman who ushers me into the basement. The wax room is set up in the style of a black market lipo clinic, complete with rickety convertible table and exposed piping. Third clue? Anyone?

Commence waxing. Ok, I know, nobody ever said that it was supposed to be pleasant, but ninety minutes (NINETY MINUTES!!!) later I was sorely lamenting the loss of the 70’s bush. The woman was nice enough, making polite conversation as she ripped away at my tender bits, but it was phrases like “the wax is nice and hot, oh nice hot wax” and “god he gave us the hair down there” that made me wonder if I should have heeded the warning signs. She seemed slightly inexperienced at the “bikini wax” or “that new brazilian thing”, as she liked to call it, and mentioned several times that her daughter Sophia generally did a better job than she. Other trivia about The Waxer Lady: she has a garden with Flowers. And Tomatoes. She had been Working at the Salon for TwentyNine Years. I am a Patient Girl, because she’s had Other Girls GET UP AND LEAVE mid-wax. My Sadistic Waxer’s voice also bore a strong resemblance to Yoda’s, making everything that much more surreal. 30 minutes in I was already delirious with pain, and all I could think of was:

except instead of a mystic light ray he was armed with a vial of wax and some talcum powder.

The worst thing?

How to put this delicately…

it wasn’t quite a CLEAN wax job, and despite losing several layers of skin, there are still quite a few “hangers-on”. And the wax. The wax is still there. And it is sticky and it is uncomfortable.

Moral of the story: if it’s 5:30 PM on a Friday, and no reputable salons are accepting customers, and the waxer at the salon where you wind up is leaving as you enter, and the waxer talks like a character from Star Wars ™, JUST STOP. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT PAY THEM FIFTY DOLLARS. You’ll only wind up with subpar results and very, very sore nether-regions.