The Toll of Beauty - Military Style

So let's talk about eyebrows, shall we?

I wish I could include a picture of today's subject of discussion but unfortunately for each of you, I am not fully "staffed" in the area of computer-graphic-to-blog manipulation. Therefore, you will have to channel me, my facial expressions, my tone of voice and my ridiculous antics to really get the feel of how this all went down. I welcome you to a little piece of my world.

So Saturday, I decide that I need a manicure. I don't need anything fancy. I just need my cuticles to quit overgrowing my fingernails. (Besides that, I read on Yahoo, society's foremost take on all things culturally appropriate and true, that hands are one of the four things that men notice on a woman. Now, I'm not going to say that this is bogus but let's just say that I have NEVER heard this (Hands) are even in the running for the top four things a man notices in a woman. EVER. I'm just sayin... However, let's assume that this is absolutely and completely, 100% true, I'm willing to do my part and help this train down the tracks. You just never know...)
So, I go to my buddy Robby over at the nail place. Maybe it's Bobby. Who can tell? Perhaps Robby to some, Bobby to others. To me, "Hand man" or "Nail guy".


**Side note** No offense intended by this but who here is highly suspicious of men who do nails... for a living? That's exactly what I thought. I just saw all your highly manicured hands go up. And your hands look good... why? Because many of you have had a man do your nails and men surprisingly do a very nice job. Not that I thought they couldn't do a nice job. However, I have tended toward lower expectations for men who paint nails for a living. I guess I'm sexist. I also think women are not as strong as men. So sue me. Back to the story...

Mr Hand man tells me to come over and he will do my nails and then, in this order, he begins to question me...

What's your name again?

"Christi"

What do you do?

"I'm a speech language pathologist. I work with kids at Vanderbilt."

"Do you know your nails look terrible?"

"Ummm... well, that is why I am here."

"You want your eyebrows done, too? Oooooo... have you been messing with your eyebrows?"

"Ummmm... no, I don't think so.

"I don't do much to them except pluck a few here and there as needed."

Have you met your soulmate?

(Yes, it was that abrupt, that personal and that weird! What am I supposed to say?

So, he heard...)

(crickets)

** PAUSE**

"Ummm... well I guess not." (That is also why I am here -Thanks Yahoo!)

"Well, what's wrong with him?"

In that one statement, he sold an eyebrow job, a lip job and a paraffin wax.

No joke.

Kind words will get you everywhere with me.

He finishes my nails and they look good but he doesn't want to touch my eyebrows because he is the "hand man" and not the "brow bro". I'm down with that. I think it is good that everyone realize their strengths and weaknesses. I've got weaknesses. My peeps have got 'em. "Hand man"'s got 'em and his are called eyebrows. However, he knows, and is married to, by the way, the "Brow Guru", the "Arch Angel", the "Great White Hope for Stray Hairs". That's right. In the same salon (And the same household it appears) cosmetic greatness has gathered together for some serious beautification of some women looking for soulmates. What are the chances that I, little ol' Christi, would happen upon such a place? One answer will suffice. God.

"Hand Man" sends me to his "Arch Angel" for her to work magic on my eyebrows which, to some, appear to have been messed with. She is friendly and happy and a busy little bee. Wearing a totally cute sweater - wanted to ask where she got it but after the soulmate question, I felt like we were treading on thin ice with regards to appropriate boundaries between a girl and her hoof and hair people and I for one, did not want to be the one to cross it.

She had me come over and sit down. I immediately said,

"I really don't want them too thin."

"Oh no, I not make them too thin."

"No, really. I really and truly don't want them too thin".

"No, no, no, no, no, I say I not make them too thin."

"Well, it's really important to me that they not be too thin."

"I know, you say not too thin. I not make them too thin."

Well, you know what happened....(Yeah, you THINK you do....)

I lean back and she starts putting wax above my eye brows. Ohhhh, she's one of THOSE Arch Angels. She's a top and bottomer. However, as she begins to slather the wax, she drags her popsicle stick down my hairline almost to my cheekbone. Immediately, I am thinking, I would prefer not to be snatched bald-headed in this eyebrow endeavor.

RRRRRRR..IIIIIIIIII...PPPPPPPPPP

Yeah. It hurts. We all have been there, ladies. AND, we all know it is NO WAY going to hurt as much as the lip rip so I can handle this and so can my hairline.

Left side, (strong side) sequence happens again. Top of the brow, drag to my cheekbone and take the first 1/2 inch of my hairline with it.

Now the fun is wearing off and I know it is going to get worse before it gets better. It just usually does in most cases. No exception here. Bottom of the brows and right side starts. She slathered the wax underneath my eyebrow and as she sticks the strip of paper on the wax, I raise my eyebrow just a hair (literally) and she says...

"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! DON'T DO DAT!!!

DON'T MOVE YOU FACE WHEN I PUT DIS ON YOU EYE."

Ok, so I should have known better, but honestly, more than perfect eyebrows, I want to you, my little Arch Angel, to quit yelling at me with hot wax hanging over my face on a flimsy popsicle stick. I would prefer a little extension of grace while you are scalding the top layer of skin off my eye, which is known by so many of us to be one of a most sensitive place on your face. But, as we all know, it is not about me and what I want.

So, she moves to the other eyebrow, same scenario without the literally hair raising eyebrow. I'm a quick study. You don't have to tell me more than once (usually). So we are waxed on the top and bottom of the brows and then she says,

"Oh my geesh. You brows need a haircut."

She says this while I have my hands in paraffin wax covered with plastic bags and potholders and I have no way of stopping her as she is leaning over me in a reclining chair with hot wax on a popsicle stick and threatening to cut my brows. What do you do?

So she begins...

She brushes my eyebrow up and takes her scissors and begins to cut.

LADIES, do you remember when you were a little girl and your mom cut your bangs on Saturday night before church on Sunday? She told you to stay still and you believed her because she was cutting so dangerously close to your eyes that you thought she might cut your eye lashes off. And that sound of cutting - dull scissors on dry hair right near your eyes. Man, that must have made a pretty powerful impression because I had a full on hallucination of that time when I was 5 right there in the Arch Angel's chair.

Now, I want to make a distinction. When you go for a trim, the scissors snip your hair. When you go for a donation for locks of love haircut, they chop your hair. When you go in for an eyebrow wax, there should be no chopping. There should be AT MOST, snipping at the most minuscule level. "AA" cut those puppies and I do mean cut.

CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT, CUT.

I want you to go back and count the number of cuts she made.

Yeah. SEVEN.

ON ONE EYEBROW!

Friends, look at my picture on the right of this post. Does it truly look like I could afford SEVEN CUTS on ONE EYEBROW? I don't have a unibrow. I don't have eyebrows long enough to style. I now have no eyebrow.

The same thing happened on the left side to which I just began internally rocking back and forth hoping amongst hope that she hopefully has good taste in eyebrow grooming. I look at hers while she has me in a body hold, scissors in hand, wax dripping....

Three words...

NICE EYEBROW PENCIL!!

The event was traumatic and there's more to it but I just can't go further. I looked in the mirror after it was over and the one that I moved the hairs breadth on, was thinner than the other one. I mentioned it and she said, "Oh yeah. Well, that one already messed up."

Oh yes. She said it!

Anyway, I walked around all day and wondered why I was being saluted throughout the day. I got home and realized that I had a military brow cut. They are officially buzzed. Not buzzed off and for that I am grateful, but buzzed nonetheless. I woke up the next day and looked like a 7 year old little boy with a burr haircut who slept on it wrong and needed water to calm the cowlick (sp?) down. I seriously had to spend 6 minutes on my eyebrows yesterday morning to try and gain some semblance of regularity above my eyes.

My only hope is that, for as some of you know, hair growth is not a problem for me. I just have to hang on and soon and very soon we will have full on GIRLY eyebrows.

I just can't wait until they're long enough to braid.