The Price of Beauty

I was out shopping around yesterday and was feeling guilty as I passed my favorite nail salon. Suddenly, I could FEEL how bushy my eyebrows had become. It had been months since my last wax. I love the feeling AFTER having my nails/brows/hair done, but I hate the process. All the socially required idle chatter with the person I don't know/can't understand/don't really care to know. Go ahead, call me a snob, but you know you hate it too. Somewhere deep down inside, your inner hermit hates talking about your hairdresser's daughter's prom dress as much as I do.

And did I mention the JUDGEMENT that occurs at one of these appointments? Oh my! I have gray hairs!!! At the age of...how old am I???? Yes, woman, I am twenty two. I have gray hair. Believe me, it sucks, I get it. Also, I have sucky nails. And don't get them started on my dry knuckles. How I have lived to the age of twenty two with such terrible hair and nails, no one will ever know.

So I bit the bullet and went in. The first thing they want you to do is sign in and write down what "service" you are having done that day. I hate this part because, secret: whenever I have my brows waxed, I get my upper lip done too. Glamorous, I know. I realize that a lot of other women have to have this done as well (and a couple handfulls more SHOULD have this done) but that doesn't mean that I want to write it down. On a PUBLIC paper for everyone else to read! So I just write "brow wax." (As I'm re-reading this, I notice that I don't mind publishing this on my blog for everyone to read...funny how that works out).

After waiting for a few minutes, I get called back to the back room where they have the wax pots. I kindly ask the woman to do my brows ("I know they're just atrocious, embarassed giggle") and please also do my upper lip. After a few painful rips and snide comments ("Who did your eyebrows last?? They're so uneven.") she says the most hilarious and horrifying things I had heard in a dew days.

"Hmm, you want me to do your chin too? I see some hair down there." ...WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY TO THAT?? I can't say, "No, I like my chin hairy - I keep it like that on purpose," so, what the hell, the lady waxes my chin. In my defense, I come from a long line of hairy people - my mother before me and her mother before her. I'm pretty sure when my mom found out she was having a girl, she prayed each night that I would inherit someone else's genes for body hair. The cards were stacked against me from the start.

After all the ripping and tearing at my whole face, the lovely waxologist finally lets me out the door, but not before she can comment on how dry!! my!! skin!! is!!! I end up paying twenty five bucks to be ripped apart and insulted. In the end, I take the woman's card and tell her I'll be back in three weeks, because if I don't return soon, who else would I find to knock down my ballooning self-esteem? I guess I'd have to get a personal trainer.