I have this one defining moment that I always refer to as ‘the most humbling experience of my life.’ Funny, as I get older and my humbling moments are compounding themselves into a rather lenghty list. One of these days I’ll tell you all about the big gay rugby auction. Only in NY…but back to this story.

A few years back, I was taking a trip to Acapulco with my BF. I thought I would spice the whole thing up by going in for a wax. You know, a waaaax. You knowwww…for the hair. Down there. Alright, we all on board now?

I had the appointment at the Aveda salon. Nice, clean, fresh smelling. Everyone speaken English (this has become a very important telling sort of distinction in my story telling these days). They placed me in the waterfall room, candles lit, soft music playing, gave me tea and told me to relax. It wasn’t hard. I did.

A soft spoken woman came to get me and lead me to the wax room. She gave me privacy and told me to change into these little disposable cotten panties that were on the table. Cute! The lights were somewhat low, the ambiance serene. I was getting myself psyched up. ‘I can do this. I can do this.’ Now I can be all for a little rough housing in the boudoir, but the idea of dropping hot wax down there, only to tear it off with a strip of cloth moments later is so far out in S&M left field, I can’t even fathom it. So my trained wax tech enters the room and chats with me. I’m nervous. She knows. Then she starts pawing around down there, touchin hairs, making faces and I am now too pleased. I’m paying her to claw at me and belittle my region with looks of disgust? I hadn’t gardened down there in like 2 weeks!! I was going crazy! I knew it was bad, but her reaction was a bit much. I could feel my face warming with the heat of judgement. I was so embarrassed.

Turns out, I hadn’t let it grow out long enough! Ick! I asked her to do my legs (not long enough) and various other parts of my bod. We couldn’t even do my brows cause I’m an uber plucker. So, I left a bit furry, not quite hairy enough for removal, but with a whole new complex: I have a hair removal addiction.

Fast forward to…couple days ago. I’ve spent a couple months now drilling everyone I know about bikini waxing, Brazillian waxing (uh-uh. no way am I ready to go there) the pain, the fear, how drunk I can be to just get myself in the door without them kicking me out. I had heard good things about this salon in my neighborhood. Heard it was pretty cheap too. (PS: in the future, whenever looking to invite people near your lady bits with hot wax and cloth strip, rippy offey things, do not allow money to play a factor. Just an FYI. Go all out. Shuck out the big bucks.)

So I hop off the train one stop before mine and decide to just look into it. I don’t have to commit to a thing! I step into the nail/massage/facial/wax/UPS shipping outlet/vegetable stand/flu shot distributer salon. I mean it. They did everything. And all in little tiny rooms off to the sides. Hmm. Tiny little Asian woman #1 hops up from the tips she’s applying and shouts/asks ‘what I want, what I want’. Uhh, I ask for the menu, she gestures to the entire freakin wall o’ options and I ask about waxing. (gestures and misunderstandings, quizzical looks) Bikini. Ah, I got her now. She leads me back and I assume she’s giving me a tour of their state of the art facilities. Yeah, you guys get it, don’t you? I had just made an appointment. For right now.

She ushers me into a tiny room, with a table thing, sliding door (does not close all the way, thank you very much. Yes, I see you out there painting nails) and a high wattage, could heat Pluto to it’s frozen core, heat lamp, er, lighting scheme. I was feeling a little exposed, but I didn’t know the half of it yet. I really didn’t know what I was doing there. Was someone coming to give me a pep talk, discuss how it all works and set me up with an appointment? I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there on the table. Fully clothed. Silly rabbit.

Asian woman #2 (aka, my wax tech) lands in the room (and I use ‘wax tech’ loosely as I have come to believe this woman may have done her training on chickens) and starts yanking on my pants. Hey, hey, hey! We’re rounding first and heading to second, ok, ok. I’m cool. Let me help you with that. When she starts yanking at my panties and checking things out down there, I realize that my standards to hair removal are a bit high and I suddenly feel cold, afraid and alone. I sniffle. There is no tea. There is no waterfall room. No paper disposable panties. Instead, I’m sweating to death in this chamber of waxing hell with this woman yanking down my skivvies and smacking my ass to boost me up on the table. Then she stares at my legs and makes a comment (something to the effect of) them being very long. Super. Thanks for turning your attention there.

I wasn’t certain if she had understood my instructions of where to go with this and where to clearly STAY AWAY FROM. She sort of nodded and muttered, but it wasn’t quite the same as hearing ‘yes, I understand that you do not want me to scar that which is most important to you in your small shallow world, and I will thusly avoid that area.’ I was stiff as a board, ready to bolt from the room and cling to the first nail painter I saw, throwing her out in front of me. I was also trying to bear in mind that if bolting happened, I would have to maintain a safe crotch distance from people/things/children/pets so as not to glue them to the wax that would surely still be attached. Deep breath in….and…well that wasn’t SO bad. I mean she was slapping it on and ripping it off so quick that I barely had time to register, whoah! yikes! There’s third base! Woo-hoo! Can’t say she wasn’t thorough.

So, I left, slightly bow legged, and no longer happy with the underwear choice, but otherwise feeling as though I had just become a woman. Again. Or for the first time. Not the current issue.

I’m recovering and doing fine. Enjoying the view and dying for a slip and slide. The funny thing is, I kind of miss Asian woman #2. She never calls. She never writes. She never even told me her name. I wonder if she’s thinking about me too…