Hair today, gone tomorrow

A while back a friend of mine was living in Italy and while her husband was deployed to Afghanistan she decided she was bored so she bought one of those hair electrolysis systems from somewhere on ebay. She told me about it, explained how it worked, how you have this gel that you lather on your leg and then you take a pair of electric tweezers and grab each individual hair and zap it. The gel carries the current to the follicle or something, I'm not really sure, but in the end the current kills the follicle and it stops growing hair.

This sounds like a great idea, because then you'd never have to shave your legs again, but then you have to think about the number of hairs on your legs at any given moment. And after you wrap your head around that number, you have to think about how all the follicles don't produce hair at the same time, but instead they take turns, which means even if you actually had the time to zap each individual hair you're still not done, you'd still have to go through the whole process two or three more times again.

Skylar is in preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:15 to 11:15, and now my friend Tammy has started teaching a water aerobics class on those days from 9:30 to 10:30. I was so excited about this when she told me, because I love water, I love aerobics, and Skylar isn't around at that time to ruin it for me. But putting on a bathing suit and then doing leg lifts twice a week in front of a bunch of other people requires personal grooming.

Now, I'm big, no, BIG on personal grooming. You bathe daily. You brush your hair and your teeth. Don't bother trying to fight me on this Owen kids, it's going to happen. You're not going to be the smelly kid in school, and you're not going to be the kid no one wants to share secrets with because your breath stinks. Swimming twice a week, though lots of fun, requires grooming and maintenance. And while I have learned over the years how to shower with the door and shower curtain open, due to the fact that these kids have tried to get a way with a LOT of crap during that 10 minutes, I simply cannot do bikini line grooming with an audience. So even though I actively encourage Skylar to hang out in the bathroom while I'm in the shower and practice putting on eyeshadow I HAVE TO DRAW THE LINE SOMEWHERE.

Well, now I'm having to seriously keep up with the shaving, and it's killing me, and it's so freaking cold here we've about had it with cold weather FOREVER and Scott's started talking a LOT about how we're moving back to Hawaii. A move back to Hawaii means several things:
1. I'd have to home school the kids, because the schools in Hawaii are very very bad.
2. We'd be free to finish up school each day was fast as we could and then go to the beach.
3. Nobody would learn anything.
4. We'd be a the beach a LOT.
5. Daily personal grooming.

And while I love all these kids, the thoughts of them possibly living with me forever because they can't get into a college or get a job because I failed to teach them anything in Jennifer's Homeschool Academy is a little worrisome, but what bothers me most about the Moving To Hawaii scenario is the daily personal grooming part. We have lived in Hawaii before, yes, but back then I only had half as many kids. And those kids were Ashlyn and Haley, who were very well-behaved and would play with baby dolls or watch a movie or just generally stay where I put them while I took care of any business in the bathroom. Now I have the boy and the devil, neither one of whom can be trusted.

So my friend has connections at Dr. Sung's office here in Korea, and she got me a deal on the Laser Hair Removal. We went down there, I thought to just talk more about it and get a firm price, and the Korean lady is like this is this and that is that and

"You think good idea?"

"Yes, I think laser hair removal is a very good idea."

"Yes, good, you come, we go, 20 minutes."

And she's gesturing to a hallway and I'm all "What? Go where? Where are we going? Now? What 20 minutes? 20 minutes til what? I don't understand..."

She was very helpful, "20 minutes now. You come, We go."

And I look at my friend, Joy, who brought me, and she's all "They're just going to do it right now, it only takes about 20 minutes."

Needless to say I felt a little bit of peer pressure, and I don't do well with peer pressure, because I thought we were just going to get some information on prices and an idea of what to expect and all and now she's backed me into a tiny room and is holding her hand out asking for my pants. So I feel a little bit of panic, and I'm all, "Uh, don't you have to shave first, or something, because I didn't realize this was all going to be happening today and I'm not ready."

And the lady is like "Oh, no worry I do."

Um. Excuse me?

You know, I'm sure there are more uncomfortable situations, I just can't think of any right now OR EVER. So yeah, I got to get on a heated bed and lay in an extremely awkward position while Korean lady did my personal grooming. Listen, these people are nothing if not super efficient. There is no room for arguing, questions, lollygagging, etc. They just don't have time for it so it isn't allowed. And then she asked me if I was okay with a little pain.

Well, of course after all the Being Shaved in a Personal Location by Someone Other Than Myself I already felt a little bit violated and vulnerable, so I decided then and there that I wasn't going to let this situation beat me. And I was all "Pain? Pffft. Whatever. I'm good. I don't feel pain, are you kidding? I've had four kids lady, you think I got this body just from sheer luck? Oh no, that's four kids worth of a body thankyouverymuch, and I pretty much laugh in the face of pain. Can I handle a laser? A little blinking light? I mean, come on. I've got a tattoo."

So she said we'd do a small area to test it out.

HOLY HELL OH MY GOD SWEET BABY JESUS WHAT THE HELL HOW MANY MORE OF THESE WILL THERE BE MAYBE I JUST WANT A FACIAL.

She left then, to wait 5 minutes to see if I was going to have any type of allergic reaction to something or another, maybe the laser, maybe the gel, I have no idea, I couldn't follow what she was telling me, as I was trying to get my breathing back under control while panicking slightly because I couldn't feel my feet. After the waiting period was over she came back in, inspected the area, and apparently I passed because she nodded firmly, grabbed the laser, and handed me some goggles.

The good news in all of this is that it turns out that first little area she did? Well, she chose to do the inside of my thigh right where you have a pressure point and that's why it was so uncomfortable. Because she was not only pushing on the pressure point but she was then shooting it with a laser. So I can honestly say that the rest of it was a piece of cake. I'm supposed to go back in one month for round 2 or 6.

Oh, Hawaii. I'm getting close.