Friday, June 22, 2007

Waxing Nostalgic

Answers to yesterday's questions.

First off, I don't actually have a Berroco Suede addiction. I have an ebay yarn store. Don't get too excited, I don't' make any money off it. I usually sell just enough every month to pay for the store. (My whole freakin' life is a Catch-22.) I never take yarn out of it for myself, but this time, what the hell!

Yarnhog asked how the waxing went for Rachel. I called her last night to see (as I'd planned on doing) and she's very happy with the results. And Chicken Knits (who, by the way, is having a destashing sale. So if someone wants to get me some Red Cherry Hill yarn. Just sayin'.) said she'd used Nads once and got black and blue marks for her troubles. Rachel had some of those, too. Scary!

Knitnzu (who has a great link to some sexy, feminine knits) said she'd never waxed. It's not as bad as it sounds. It hurts pretty bad the first time, because you really don't know what to expect. After the first time, it's not so bad. It's totally worth it! Not having to shave or anything for weeks on end is worth the trouble. The only thing I'll NEVER wax again is my underarms! That hurt worse then even the bikini line. And your underarm hair grows so unevenly that after you go through that pain, in a few days, you've got to shave again anyway. It hurts worse then a full Brazilian (that's were they take away all the pubic hair.) Also, called a Kojak. I tried that one once. Yeah. That hurt. And humiliating?? Ohmigod. After they do the front they make you get on your hands and knees so they can do the back. The anus. TMI. Sorry. Some friends and I were talking about it once and my friend said, that of course they had to do the back. She said you couldn't do the drapes and leave the valance!

Yarnhog also said she'd used an Epilady once in the 80's. Epilady is a little evil machine with rotating, I don't know, smooth, vertical disks (?) on top. These disks grab and rip out the hairs. Sort of like waxing only instead of doing whole strips of hair at a time, you're doing little 1" patches as you move it around. It. takes. FOREVER. Whereas, waxing is over relatively quickly. I have a little story about Epilady.

So there I was....

A friend of mine worked the Lancome counter at Macy's when we were in high school. It was pretty cool because she was always hookin' me up with the samples and all the "gift with purchase" things. (I used to wear makeup in the 80's. Wore enough of it that I never really felt the need to wear it again.) Anyway, the store needed a demonstrator for this new product called Epilady. She got me the job. You think being a demonstrator for perfume is bad?? (You'll notice the first half of the job is "demon", right?)

Anyway, it was my 3rd day on the job and it was a Friday evening. I'm standing there in my Sandra Garrett Modulars, holding the dreaded machine and offering to demonstrate on the arms of passersby. This big, drunk, incredibly hairy, biker guy and his buddies walk up to me and start joking about it. They'd seen the ads on TV and were daring each other to try it. I was just about to explain something when the hairy man grabbed the Epilady out of my hand and put it on his arm. His very. VERY. Hairy. Arm.

The thing I was about to explain is that with hair that thick, you're supposed to trim it first to a manageable length otherwise it'll just get tangled and stuck to your arm. Which it did. That huge, macho guy started screaming like a girl and crying like a baby. I reached over and turned the thing off and then I had to locate some small scissors to cut it out of the hair on his arm. He was bleeding (only a little) and making a scene (only a lot). His friends (and I) were laughing their asses off. He pretty much ruined the Epilady and was talking about suing. I explained that to sue, he'd have to call the police to file a report and they'd have to do a breathalyzer test on him. He decided he was fine.

I don't know why I lied to him like that. It's not like I cared about protecting Macy's interests. Or mine, so much. It's probably more the fact that, growing up in California, I was irritated by all the superfluous litigation. Also, I quit the job that night.

By the way, it took me about 15 minutes to find a link with pictures about those Sandra Garrett clothes. (5 minutes of that was just trying to rememeber what they were called!) It's only a link to an ebay auction. So, in a few days, the pictures will probably be gone. Apparently, those clothes are among the many things that we shall not speak of concerning the 1980's.

Remembering the ugly, fondly, Ruth!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the shout out! And the epilady story is priceless. I had one of those and promptly got rid of it. So much pain!

Anonymous said...

The Epilady story is awesome!!!

knitnzu said...

I guess I am so out of touch! In the 80's I totally rebelled about wearing anything anybody wanted me to. So, it was overalls, fatigues, flannel shirts, baggy, shapeless, etc. (a bit of a relief after the cling to it all poor boys of the 70's). Even gave up shaving for a while...THAT made my family pretty upset! Funny Macy's story!

Gingersnaps with Tea... said...

The epilady story totally cracked me up.

Romi said...

Oh. My. God. I used to have an Epilady! I am sure they were actually a conspiracy against women. Waxing is *nothing* in comparison!

Your story is hilarious!