Angela Dove: Award-Winning Writer

A painful epic. No. Really.

Because vacations create fodder for the family photo album or scrapbook, many would-be vacationers take stock of their person prior to a trip. For example, my friend Kelli recently purchased several new pieces of clothing for her trip to Ireland; she was hoping to convey a photogenic look that says, “Sure, I’ve been rained upon for the last week, but if you could see through this drizzle you’d really be impressed.”

I, on the other hand, am not a clothes person (read ‘not fashionable’). As a writer and mother of two small children I have two variations on the same basic style: knocking around the house on cold days, and knocking around the house on hot days. So when I took inventory last week, it was more along the lines of, “Will I still fit into my bathing suit?”

I was in the process of trying on said suit and checking in the mirror for overly fatigued seams when I noticed what appeared to be a fallen eyelash on my upper lip. I attempted to brush it off, but it wouldn’t budge. I leaned in closer and saw that the hair was on my lip because it had grown there. In dawning horror I gently ran my finger across the entire length of my upper lip. Sure enough, those baby fine hairs weren’t so fine anymore. What’s worse, several of them were definitely darker.

I’d like to report that I handled this discovery by calmly reminding myself that an aging body goes through many changes—that it is a fact of life, and if I started freaking out at age 37 I’d be in for a long ride. In fact, why don’t we just assume that is exactly how I did react? Yelling? Questionable language? Not me! After all, I’ve been plucking and snipping my eyebrows into shape since puberty. (Blame it on genetics: my father’s eyebrows left the impression that there was a walrus out there wondering where his whiskers had gotten off to.) So certainly this wasn’t that much different. Heck, I was lucky it hadn’t happened before now.

Feeling a bit hoarse and tuckered out after my purely level-headed approach to growing older, I plucked exactly one of these hairs before I realized with an equal level of nonverbal rationale that my upper lip is far more sensitive than my eyebrows. “Holy Expletive!” I surely did not yell, wincing and holding a finger to the hole that felt like it went all the way to my tooth enamel.

Later that afternoon I purchased a box of facial hair remover. I had intended to use wax—if I was going to suffer, why not get it over quickly? But while standing in the drugstore isle comparing competing products, I ran across a happy orange box touting, “No waxy mess!” I certainly didn’t want a waxy mess, did I? “Simple to use!” it proclaimed. I was sold.

Back home in my bathroom, I held one of these tidy strips in my hand. This was my small plastic ticket to a smooth-lipped summer and a scrapbook worthy of awards. Eager to reclaim the hairless me, I perused the illustrated instructions. I was to hold the strip in one hand and rub it with the other; apparently the friction would warm up the not-really-wax. Gosh, this was a piece of cake!

Next I should peel off the white cover of the strip to reveal the inner waxy layer. Check.

I should then press the strip onto the skin of my upper lip, smoothing it down in the direction of the hair growth. Right. I placed the strip gingerly and tried to smooth it, but the tepid goop was slippery and the strip slid askew. Oh well.

I looked back at the directions to see how long it would take for this stuff to latch onto the hairs. “Simply peel away hair.” Hmm. This stuff felt like the rubber cement we used in grade school, except straight from the bottle (as opposed to the dried substance that the boys used to rub on the table to make fake boogers). I counted deliberately to thirty, took a deep breath, grabbed the corner of the hair removal strip, and yanked.

The noise I made sent my partially-deaf Chihuahua, Lucy, running from the room with a speed I thought the old girl had lost years ago.

When my vision cleared, I inspected the damage. There were zero hairs on the removal strip. Impossible. I looked closely into the mirror. Sure enough, I could no longer see those hairs. That’s because they were entirely obliterated by a shining mass of sticky mess.

I filled my hands with hot water and soap and started scrubbing. This proved totally ineffective—I still looked like I had sneezed out two ounces of hair gel. Then I remembered the small bottle of “soothing toner” included in the kit. Maybe that would remove the rest of the residue. I opened the bottle, poured some onto a cotton ball, and rubbed it across my lip.

Now I looked like Mark Twain. In drag.

Thirty minutes and a loofa later, I decided not to worry about my darkening lip hairs. Summer scrapbooks are vastly overrated. And besides, I doubt anyone will notice these few hairs on my lip—at least not until the abrasions heal.

Angela Dove is the recipient of the NC Press Association 1st place award for humor columns. View archived columns and submit feedback at www.angeladove.com