Making the Least of a Hairy Situation

Tracy Beckerman
Mon, 08 Dec 2025 21:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

One of the things I find to be a complete waste of time is shaving my legs. It's not that I don't need it, it's just that the shave lasts all of about eight hours before the werewolf in me begins to reemerge. Additionally, with the vast acreage of hairy body parts that need to be attended to, it takes half the day to remove it all. It is simply not possible to do it quickly without cutting my legs to ribbons and looking like I'm recreating the shower scene from "Psycho."

From time to time, it would occur to me that there are hair removal options other than shaving. But as someone who is not particularly good with pain, I have ruled out the solutions that promise you that "it will only hurt for a second." This is what the dentist told me when he grafted my receding gums, what the OB/GYN told me when I was in labor, and what my mother told me about marriage.

I remember one time when I was in college, there was a new product called an Epi-something or other. It had a nice feminine name and a pretty picture of some lady's smooth legs on the box, and it guaranteed hairless legs for up to six weeks. It sounded like a miracle product, and I snatched one up for a pretty penny. What they neglected to say was that the Epi-thingy had these coils that yanked bunches of my hair out of my leg so painfully, I considered recommending it to the military. Granted, it did leave that one inch of leg that I Epied extremely smooth before I decided it was a medieval torture device and hurled it out my third-floor dorm window.
Updated: Tue Dec 09, 2025

One of the things I find to be a complete waste of time is shaving my legs. It's not that I don't need it, it's just that the shave lasts all of about eight hours before the werewolf in me begins to reemerge. Additionally, with the vast acreage of hairy body parts that need to be attended to, it takes half the day to remove it all. It is simply not possible to do it quickly without cutting my legs to ribbons and looking like I'm recreating the shower scene from "Psycho."

From time to time, it would occur to me that there are hair removal options other than shaving. But as someone who is not particularly good with pain, I have ruled out the solutions that promise you that "it will only hurt for a second." This is what the dentist told me when he grafted my receding gums, what the OB/GYN told me when I was in labor, and what my mother told me about marriage.

I remember one time when I was in college, there was a new product called an Epi-something or other. It had a nice feminine name and a pretty picture of some lady's smooth legs on the box, and it guaranteed hairless legs for up to six weeks. It sounded like a miracle product, and I snatched one up for a pretty penny. What they neglected to say was that the Epi-thingy had these coils that yanked bunches of my hair out of my leg so painfully, I considered recommending it to the military. Granted, it did leave that one inch of leg that I Epied extremely smooth before I decided it was a medieval torture device and hurled it out my third-floor dorm window.

Fortunately, I live in the part of the country that has four seasons, so for two of them anyway, I can hide my Chewbacca legs under long pants. But one day I went for a pedicure, and it happened that I was way overdue for a shave. As I was sitting with my pants rolled up and my toes in nice warm water, one of the salon ladies walked by and gasped.

"You don't wax?" she asked.

"I shave. I just haven't had time," I explained.

"You want wax?" she asked.

"NO! NO WAX!" I said firmly. "Too painful."

"Oh, we have a new procedure," she said. "Body sugaring! It doesn't hurt."

I raised a doubtful eyebrow at her. I had been down this no-hurt road before and had ended up as roadkill. She explained to me how the body sugar worked and showed me some stuff that, God help me, looked an awful lot like snot. Staring down at my legs, I decided I should probably do something before an archaeologist saw me and proclaimed me the Missing Link. So I reluctantly agreed to give it a whirl.

As Salon Lady rolled out the sugar booger on my leg, I lay down and braced for the worst. Suddenly I heard this huge ripping sound. Miraculously, I felt absolutely no pain. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. I was ecstatic. Bolting up, I grinned at her.

"Wow, that was amazing," I exclaimed. "It felt like nothing!"

She laughed. "It was nothing," she said, holding up a piece of the white paper that covered the massage table I was on. "I just practiced on the paper!"