“Hey, Dad…can you come in Monday so I can practice a pedicure?” So…I do the calculations; she isn’t in the Advance Course, so most of the really painful crap is off the table. Pedicure? That sounds OK. There can be some sharp tools – scrapers, picks, files etc, but nothing that should cause real pain. So OK…I’m in! Show up at the Marquis de Sade School of Aesthetics at about 12:30. Get feet soaked in some warm concoction. File here, scrape there, pick, pick, pick, little leg massage, wrap the feet in little blankies, starting to drift off and then get a little chill, a shiver if you would.

Satan (or Ms. Beelzebub as Jenn calls her)  is hovering, but she seems to have some accomplices – my Daughter, of course, and Sarah, who up until now has seemed quite sweet. Looks can be deceiving. So, what’s up? Well, Daddy…dear. You see, Sarah is on the Advanced Course and she needs someone to practice electrolysis on. So…for the record…I don’t think you should ever – I mean EVER use the words practice and electrolysis in the same sentence – EVER!!!

I think a few posts back, we established that I am a fool, so I will just plow ahead. Yes, I said OK. Yes, I assumed it would hurt; they were way too excited to assume anything else.

So what is electrolysis? Well…basically, you pass an electrical current through the human body and direct it at a hair follicle until you fry it. If you think there is an uncanny resemblance to the electric chair…there is a good reason for that. So Satan hands me a metal rod wrapped in a wet towelette with instructions to hang on. Sarah sticks a needle in my chest and starts cranking the electrical current to see my pain threshold. Satan, with the bedside manner of a dentist, keeps saying reassuring things like “Don’t be a pussy again.” So, with my pain tolerance established – somewhere on the safe side of half a millivolt – they proceed. So here is the plan. Stick a needle into the hair follicle, zap it a few times and then pull the hair out by the roots and laugh your ass off while I wince in pain. So back to the whole pain thing. It seems that I actually can stand quite a bit of electricity, which may be a good thing for when I snap and finally kill one of the little…but I digress. What my body actually objects to is not the electricity (which they did turn up) but having a needle shoved into it by someone laughing hysterically. While Sarah assured me it was a filament, not a needle, and Satan picked out what she was sure would be some of the more painful hairs, I explained that it really didn’t matter what you called it. Needle…filament…laser beam…if it pierces your skin, passes through your heart and then penetrates the lung before you add several jolts of electricity…it is just sadistically cruel and, yes…bound to cause a bit of discomfort and a twinge or two.

I have experienced many things in my life and, for the most part, have been pretty blessed – save for an exceptionally vengeful and unforgiving daughter. But one thing I never thought I would experience was the smell of my own flesh roasting. Sniff, Sniff, Sniff…what is that smell? Oh…I know…It is me baking. This is just so wrong!

So there I lay. Stab! ZAP, ZAP, ZAP, YANK…giggle, giggle, giggle. Oh, do this one, it looks sturdy. STAB! ZAP ZAP ZAP… and on and on. Yes, I am a fool. I have resigned myself to the life of a lab rat. As I left, Satan had gathered her minions and was planning their next “experiment”. Satan was enjoying a manicure, and the last thing I heard as the lady worked on her forehooves was, “Dooo the flames again…I like the flames.”