And now that I’ve posted yet another maudlin, privileged, first-world whine (see previous post) I’ve decided that I need to bring back some humour. We all need a good ol’ laugh. This one dates back a few years, but I’m not sure I’ve ever told it. In fact, I only just remembered it last weekend at a birthday party for my husband at our house. We were all hanging out having a few drinks and trading tales when the conversation turned to waxing. I don’t remember how, there was a lot of wine involved.
So this memory came roaring back to me and I shared it, and now I’m going to share it with you.
Many years ago, more than nine now, I think, we used to live in a little town house in Cambridge. I actually really loved that house, it was our first real home. The first home we owned and, like any place you own, we had put a lot of work into making it our own. However, before we did all the work, we had a ton of kids and ourselves piled into three bedrooms and one bathroom. It was…snug. Anyway, we did the kinds of things most parents with full and busy households do and got involved with sports and dance. Sports, for us, meant soccer. We coached and the kids played. We coached a lot. First one team, then two teams and then one summer which shall never be repeated, three teams. Every summer we liked to do something fun for the teams and we would have a skills/fun practice where the kids got to do really neat challenges. We would hang hula hoops from the goal posts and do precision challenges etc. And at the end, we’d let them pie us in the face. One year when it was my turn to get pied, my husband thought it would be a nice treat to buy chocolate whip cream. You can imagine how that looks, melted on a face in +30 degree heat. Not. Pretty.
Anyway, one year we told the team if they won a certain amount of games, Shawn would shave his head. Well, they did, and he did. And he looked good. So good, in fact, that shaving his head became a regular summer thing.
I don’t remember how it happened, but, I *believe* it had to do with a comment on a bald man’s head that looked so smooth and shiny, we thought it had been waxed.
Yes. We went there.
No, we didn’t think to ask anyone first or get advice.
No, cell phones were not so prevalent then and certainly did not have the video capacity they do now.
We went out to shoppers and bought some wax and strips. That night, I buzzed his head with the clippers so that the hair was short, but not so short there would be nothing to grab onto with wax. It was maybe, a half a centimeter long, or half of a half. We decided it would be best to start with the back of his head. Low down, from the nape of his neck straight up, perpendicular to his right ear. I applied the warm wax for him, as he sat bare chested on the side of the tub. I carefully placed the strip over the wax and rubbed it. We chatted, he said the warm wax felt nice. I asked if he was nervous and he said, a little. I asked if he was ready. He said yes.
I yanked upward, in one smooth motion, just like the instructions said. I yanked upward. His scalp yelled NO.
I don’t think it was actually his scalp that yelled, it was probably Shawn himself. But it was so primal. I’ve never seen skin pull away from the body that much. That strip didn’t budge, not one bit, but his skin did. We immediately realized that this was the worst possible decision of all time and the kids were drawn like moths to a flame to the bathroom door, no longer distracted by the Disney movie we had put on for them, they wanted to know if Daddy was dying.
I turned on the shower and bent his head over and tried to soften the wax again to the point of at least being able to take off the strip. But the wax didn’t want to cooperate. The wax thought it was funny. I thought it was a *little* funny. Shawn did not. I got my scissors out and tried to gently hold the strip away from his head enough to cut the tiny hairs but I was so afraid I was going to cut his scalp. We tried using a razor, but it kept getting gummed up in the wax.
It took us over an hour to get the strip off his head and get most of the wax off. Poor Shawn had such a headache and we had to razor the rest of his head to get it somewhat smooth. I mean, we learned some valuable lessons: leg hair and head hair and leg skin and head skin are NOT the same beasts. Waxing your head is a bad idea, and, if you spend long enough with your head tipped down over the tub and a shower head running directly over you with warm water, your ears will be super duper clean.
We have never again experimented with waxing any part of Shawn’s body. And, even though he did keep up the practice for many years afterwards, he no longer shaves his head in the summer. Bummer.
So there you go, a more lighthearted, true story, from the annals of the Reilly family years. And a little laugh for your Friday.
Nuala Reilly: A Writer's Journey 