Inflammation is not a good color on me.
Now knowing that I am going to be on the road for a good long while and staying at a bunch of stranger’s houses in all the different cities, the scenario I would like to avoid is the inevitable one when the home owners come home earlier than expected and catch me in the process of shaving my chest. That’s the real world version of “The Crying Game” in my head.
So to avoid this, I thought “Hey, why don’t I just get body sugaring done? It’ll last longer!”
In the past, I have tried self-waxing strips. It was not the smartest of ideas I’ve ever had. Somewhere between getting the wax stuck on my chest, hands, legs, face and the walls...I vowed that this was going to be the last attempt at waxing. But folks have told me that sugaring is not as painful, but that I should still get a professional to do it.
So off of a friends recommendation, I booked an appointment at a day spa for the following Saturday. I arrived at the spa for my appointment and was immediately led down a bunch of hallways that twisted and turned, snaking all the way to the back of the building. Funny, it didn’t look like it could house the entirety of Middle-Earth from the outside?
As I sat in an over-stuffed chair, feeling like a man-child in a room that was far too sophisticated, I wondered how the hell I was going to find my way out again. Before I knew it, a small woman entered the waiting area and introduced herself as my “Body Scrubber”.
“I’m afraid you got the wrong guy. I’m here for, um...a uh, *cough* chest...sugar...thing.” Said I in the manliest voice I could muster.
“Oh no! First you have to exfoliate all the dead skin off so as not to cause infection!” I was leery, but she had that kind of matter of fact approach about her that I did not want to question. So I kinda shrugged and got up to follow her.
“Oh but first, we have to get you changed out of your clothes and into the bathrobes. You’ll find one in the change room here.” Ah, right, this is a spa. I forgot about the protocol. Already, I was dreading this experience.
So out I come from the change room, trying to maintain somewhat of a cool-guy-stride as this massive bathrobe consumes my tiny stick figure body. I’m led into this room where everything is covered in tiles. In the middle of the room is a hydraulic bed. Above it is about 5 shower heads. I know what this is. This is the wet room. Am I getting a body treatment? I didn’t want one?!
“So I’ll get you on the table face down first and underneath the towel. You can take everything off, don’t worry I’ve seen it all before,”
Whoah, whoah, whoah! Like, NAKED-naked? Even I’m not ballsy enough to say “I’ve seen it all,” to clients.
“Um...I think I’ll keep my underwear on if that’s cool.” I know...such a prude.
“Okay, well anything you don’t want to get wet, just place it in the pockets of your bathrobe.” Fuck. How dumb will I look if I walk out with sopping wet underwear showing through my jeans? Thankfully, she gave me a second option, because she obviously saw the wheels turning this idea over in my head.
“You can use a pair of our disposable undies if you like, over on the table there.” Yes, yes I will.
So she leaves the room and I hang up my robe on the back of the door. Quickly, I take off my underwear and tuck them into the pocket. I pick up the baggie that has a navy blue piece of material in it and rip it open. I grab hold of two pieces of string and look at this object for the first time. I’m confused. It looks like an eye patch. A slight tug shows that in fact, there is a space for my legs to fit through. So as I place my legs in the proper holes, I hike it up...and realized, I have it on backwards, cause this ain’t covering jack! So quickly now, I switch it around...and it’s still not covering up much. That is until I gave it a little tug with the strings, and fwoomp! Like one of those little umbrellas you get in Pina Coladas, it spread across my junk. Then I gave the same kinda tug to the back part.
There was no fwoomp.
At the very moment that it hit me that I was a grown man, standing in the middle of a room, with nothing on but a thong...the door opens. “Is everything alright in here?”
Before I knew it I was in the fetal position, eyes bulging out of my skull and shrieking at the top of my lungs, “I’M NOT DECENT!!!”
The door quickly closed again and I dived under the towel. Even as I yelled out, “Okay I’m ready now,” I was still fidgeting with the placement of the dental floss up my arse. “How is everything so far?” the girl kindly asked. “Well, I never thought wearing a thong was going to be part of my day today.”
And then...she giggled. On e of those mischievous giggles that tells you that she knew all too well what was going to happen when I opted for the disposable undies. You. Bitch.
She then proceeded to rub my entire backside with sand. Yeah she can tell me its chocolate mixed with Jojoba and the honey from bees that migrated from the Spanish coast all she wants, it still felt like plain old sand that was tearing my skin off. “Doesn’t that feel amaaaaaaaaazing?”
And when I say ‘my entire backside’, I mean she scrubbed places only I am allowed access to. I felt violated. Once the scrubbing was done, she turned on the water works. 5 shower heads turned up to the max and hotter than all hell blasted what little skin remained into a heap of boiling flesh. “How’s that feel? Pretty awesome right?”
“AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!”
“Okay, time to flip over.” Really? We’re not done yet?
The front side was a little less painful now that I knew what to expect. But have you ever tried taking a shower while you lie on your back? Of course not, because you’d drown.
Exactly!
After I’ve towelled off and removed the underwear of shame, I leave the room and am handed off to the body sugaring lady. She is 3 inches taller than me, jet black hair that is parted to the right and lacquered down for eternity, tattooed eyebrows, black lipstick and a lip-piercing that I mistook for a birthmark at first. Her arms were crossed in front of her as she peered down her nose at me.
“Hello. I am your ‘vaxer’. You vill come ziss vay.” Big, scary, German accent. Wait...did she say, “Vaxer?” As in...”Waxer?”
“Umm, sorry but I think I signed on for body sugaring?”
“VEE DOO NOT DO ZISS SUGARINK! VEE DO ZEE VAXING!” Holy fuck I am scared!
So there I am on a freaking dentists chair without my shirt on, starring at this Goth, neo-Nazi who is mixing a bowl of hot wax as she stares at me with no expression on her face. My instincts are telling me to get the fuck out of dodge, but my 1% of manly pride is kicking me in the cranium saying, “Don’t be a pussy!” I’m getting a chest waxing, I think we’ve established what kind of man I...oh, too late, she smeared me with wax.
Then she placed a small strip of cloth across the wax. And at that point I felt soothed. I felt that she was trying to lull me to sleep, like my mom used to do when she tucked me in at night. Gently rubbing my back over top of the blankets till my eyes started to glaze over.
And then this chick ripped my fucking nipple off. As some of you might remember, this is not the first time my nipples have come under attack. But I saw clearly the strip of cloth forcibly removed from my body, and my nipple refusing to let go of the cloth, so that it looked like a piece of chewing gum was being pulled off of the street on a hot summer’s day. Only to finally release at the very last moment and sling back to my body, where it immediately swelled up and began to have a pulse of its own. The rest of my chest was about what I’ve come to expect, I mean if I can suffer through tattoo’s what’s a little wax right?
Then she slathered on a layer across the side of my abs. “Oh no wait! I don’t usually do that part,” I tried to say. But she just looked at me, (while she applied the wax) and just kinda hypnotically nodded as I spoke. As if she was saying, “Oh I totally understand your peals for mercy...but we have ways of making you talk!”
A thunderclap filled the small room. I gripped the sides of the chair and puckered my mouth up involuntarily. I did not know that the hair on my abdomen was attached to my spinal column. And that was just one of 6 strips she did across the area.
When it came time for me to get off the table and pay for this torture, a steady stream of sweat ran down my body from the collected pool that was resting in the nook of my armpits, and the paper sheet that she laid out across the table stuck to my body. I’m not known to sweat very much, so when I pulled off the sheet to reveal a Jesus Christ like sweat print outlined on the paper, I had to laugh out loud. “Look at that! I am such a pussy!” I exclaimed.
“Indeed,” was the last thing Nazi-waxer said to me.
Here’s the real kicker. This whole thing cost me $120.
“What the what!?!”
“Your treatments come to $120.”
“For that?!?”
“Well the scrub was $40. The use of our decadent Jojoba/Chocolate/Bee honey from butt-fuck anywhere cost an additional $15. The use of the locker rooms was another $10. And then the chest waxing was $55.”
I got jacked.
Actually, come to think of it, this was a mugging! They beat the crap out of me, they emasculated me, and ran off with my money while I wreathed in pain. I should report this.
