Friday, April 16, 2010

On The Subject Of Personal Grooming...

Tonight Yousuf is working late (yes, again.  Sigh.  I hate the end of the school year for professors!  Down with exams, I say!) and in his loving, caring, completely clueless way he offered to take us all out for dinner instead of me having to cook after being with the kids all day.

Loving gesture?  For sure.  Did I say yes?  Hell NO.

See, this has been the week from Hades.  I'm not even joking.  With Nissa being sick (she's getting better now) the resulting sleep-deprivation has nearly driven me to madness.  Apart from that, I've been stuck in an endless cycle of puke-laundry-puke for nearly five days which has has left little time for anything else, especially things that involve taking care of ME.  Like, say...showering.  Or personal grooming.

After I had Nissa, I went through a brief period of insanity where I was convinced that I was getting hairier.  And not just in the usual places.  It finally dawned on me one day that I wasn't necessarily growing more hair, but that the decision to bring another human being into the world had left me with next to no time to de-hair the stuff I already had.  Someone should really tell you this stuff before you decide to have children:

WARNING:  Do Not Attempt To Procreate Unless You Don't Mind Looking Like A Sasquatch.

And before you say that I should just get over myself, and who really cares about hair, and that it's natural, and yadda yadda yadda, let me say that in my many years of self-grooming I have noticed that the ONLY people who spout this kind of nonsense are people that have been blessed by the One or Ones In Charge to be born genetically hair-free.  My in-laws are some of these people.  They also have fine bone structure and never get sick.  Mutants.

I on the other hand, have to work HARD to look even half as good as normal-haired folks.  The sad truth is, my tribe is hairy.  And not just peach-fuzz-only-in-the-sunlight hairy.  Nay, me and my kin have been doubly blessed to be placed squarely in the Dark Hair and Light Skin hair category (hairegory?).  There's just no hiding the luxurious pelt that grows in places no human being should have a right to grow hair.

I blame my parents. 

Which leads to the grooming.  I am a kick-ass groomer.  Mostly because I have become so TIRED of professional waxers alluding to the fact that I look like Evil Bert when I go to get my eyebrows done:


The only thing is, it takes a lot of time and hard work (which usually involves a lot of grunting and sometimes cursing if the grooming involves hot wax) to go from Angry Bert to Not Half-Bad Mahreen.  Time, which in this line of work is a rare and precious commodity.  Every day I'm faced with these agonizing choices:  Warm Up Lunch or Wax My Face (unlike you freaks who only have to take care of the hair on ONE part of your face, I get to target the whole flipping thing so that people don't think Yousuf married a man.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.)?  Sleep or Shave?  Change A Diaper or De-Hair? 

And, being the super-amazing (and modest) human being that I am, I usually choose my offspring over myself.  I know most of you moms (even you hair-free freakoid ones) can relate, and you would probably make the same choice too.  But man, do I miss my razor.

So when Yousuf kindly volunteered to do us a solid and take us out for dinner, I'm sure you can understand why I gave him the mother of all dirty looks.  Silly boy...he just doesn't get it.  He looked so confused when I said that I'd only let him take me out if I could wear a ski mask to dinner.  To which he asked if I had plans to rob the fast food joint.  At which point I got mad and stormed away. 

I've decided that I need a Personal Grooming Schedule.  No, not need.  I DESERVE it.  I claim tonight for ME.  I wonder how that will go over, though.  Probably not too well.  "Forget going out for dinner, kids...how about we all stay home so that mama can shave her legs?  Doesn't that sound like FUN?"  Maybe I can find a way to make it a family affair.  I might as well get the girls broken in early, because with the genes they've been dealt they'll probably live to be a hundred but be as hairy as all get out.  Sorry, kids.  Blame your grandparents.

And the next time Yousuf decides to do something spontaneous like take us out for dinner, I'm going to have him check my Personal Grooming Schedule first.  I could probably swing going out before a day marked "Shaving" but definitely NOT before "Waxing".  Can you just imagine what would happen?

Cue me imagining the following scenario...

"Can I please have some fries?"
"Don't you want our money instead of fries?"
"Ummm...no.  I just want some fries."
"You mean money."
"I mean FRIES."
"But you're dressed up like a robber."
"Oh that.  Just ignore the ski mask.  It's just...an accessory?"
"Accessory?  But it's 65 degrees outside!"
"Yeah, well.  I get cold.  On my face.  In the spring."
"Oh, just take it off, already!"
"No.  Just give me the fries."
"Take it off first!"
"BACK AWAY FROM THE COUNTER AND GIVE ME THE FRIES."
"Fine. Are you like deformed under there?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"Can I just have a peek?  Please?  I'll give your kids free chocolate milk if you let me see..."
"Free?  Did you say free?  Okay then...but just a peek."
Pulling off ski mask...
"OH HOLY HORSES IN HEAVEN!  PUT IT BACK ON!  PUT IT BAAAAACK!"

That'll teach Yousuf to do something nice for me.
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