As some of you may or may not know our daughter Alia, is going to esthetician school. She has a great blog on nail art thelacquerednail.blogspot.ca,  and now wants to follow that as a career. As a by-product of this, our basement has some 300 different nail polishes. Apparently, you can never have too many nail polishes. In any case, she is doing quite well and on occasion needs family members to come in and be guinea pigs (victims) for her learning. As a close knit family unit, we have all tried to help when we can. Jenn has had a facial massage, make-up done twice, eyelash tinting and eyebrow tinting and is going to go in for another set of ear piercings. Dan, our youngest, has been in for teen-look makeup complete, with mascara and Halloween makeup, Dave is likely getting his ears pierced, and that left me.

The suggestion was ear-piercing, but it just isn’t me. The next section in the course was waxing. Ok…here is an area where I can be of big help; being somewhat hirsute. So the appointed day (today) arrives and I show up at the Marquise De Sade School of Aesthetics. I am ushered into an enclosed area and in front of a class of neophyte waxers – remove my shirt. A hush falls on the room. You hear “The Ginger Yeti lives.” “This is the Eldorado“, “My Gawd a human GeoPet.” Without a word, they split into three groups of four and prepared to do 3-hour shifts each to rid my back of every shred of hair. A team was dispatched to the local rental office to procure a portable cement mixer and a tiger torch to keep the wax warm because the normal six-ounce can just wasn’t going to cut it.

I am placed on a rack, and amidst much giggling, the process begins. First, they explain that they must cut the hair shorter so it doesn’t matt. Then they take the TINIEST pair of scissors in the world and start cutting one hair at a time, and there are a lot of hairs! Not so bad, maybe even a little relaxing. Then some astringent was used to clean the area. Nice. Then, some baby powder so they can see which way the hair lays. Oh…that felt good. Then some nice warm wax, a bit of patting, some stretching of the skin and then a quick flick and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!!

Now your skin has millions of tiny nerve endings, and these nerve endings send messages to the brain in milliseconds, and although I assume the conversation only took milliseconds, I imagine it went something like this;

BACK – Umm…Ahhh…Brain…we seem to have received a massive trauma down here. Are you seeing this?

BRAIN – Umm…yeah Back, the panel in your area is pretty much lit up like a Christmas tree.

BACK – That is what I am seeing. This was a voluntary procedure, wasn’t it? I mean the memo we got was that this would be nothing serious, just some slight discomfort.

BRAIN – Yes, it was. That was my understanding as well…why do you ask?

BACK – Well…it’s just that you wouldn’t think someone would volunteer for this level of trauma. Who requested this?

BRAIN – His Daughter.

BACK – Well, unlike you, I am not privy to the finer details of his life (being a Back and all), but a couple of questions immediately spring to mind;

1. Were there serious issues there? I mean was the daughter severely mistreated, abused, anything?

BRAIN – Not really. The usual mocking, picking on her boyfriends, one incident at Armadillo’s…the usual stuff, I mean he can be a bit of an asshole at times, but nothing that would indicate the level of trauma that we are seeing on the screens here. Oh…she did always want a pony…but then again they did always live in a sub-division, so that was kind of out of the question.

BACK – then I have to ask…WHAT THE F___! WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU TOLD MOUTH THAT HE COULD APPROVE THIS!!!

At that moment, my eyes peed themselves. Now you are likely thinking that I cried, and you would be wrong. I didn’t cry. My eyes peed themselves! Crying implies tears running down or even streaming down your cheeks. No! Tears shot from my eyes. They squirted across the room. People were sprayed. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, that hurt. And…we only have seven square feet more to go. About the third rip my daughter leaned over and said “You know…I always wanted a pony, and Mom said you were the one, that said no.”

All I could do was whimper. Wax…pat…RIP!…whimper. At the halfway point, she said “Remember Armadillo’s?” I was a wreck. Every muscle in my body was exhausted from waiting for the next onslaught. Apparently the good news was, my daughter, my wife and the 12 students all felt it looked great. It is my back! I can’t see it! Why the F___ do I care what it looks like!

So I am out…I will help in any way that I can to make sure she graduates from the Marquis De Sade School of Aesthetics, but I am done. Jenn said, “My God, you were brave.” All I can think is…My God, that was stupid. The good news is that our daughter was able to take the remaining hair and wax and make a pony…so my debt is paid. Well, except maybe for Armadillo’s. God help me if she decides to collect on that.