Lycanthropy runs in my family

Mo’Nique has been in the news because of her hirsute legs on the red carpet. She said on Oprah that being unshaven was a black women’s thing. Ahem. Maybe its just a Mo’Nique thing, cause I’m a black women and I shaved my legs as soon as I had hair.
I must have been twelve when I discovered the first hairs. I remember an oppressively hot day, mid-summer in the deep of Alabama. I was sitting on the porch in my grandmother’s rocking chair, folding myself over to stop the beginnings of what I didn’ t yet recognize as cramps, with my chin on my knees. There were hairs there. It wasn’t a conscious decision to remove them, but I somehow got the sewing scissors and started to trim myself.
        I stole my older brothers razor that summer and used it on my legs until it got rusty. At one point it cut me so bad that my nervous system jolted and made me dizzy. No hair will grow in the spot where I cut myself to this his day.
I tried various dipilatories, singing “ “I wear short shorts” with the NAIR ladies as I made the entire house smell like rotten eggs. I was so hairy after awhile that I had to shave every day in the shower in the morning and I swear I would get five o’clock shadow on my legs. I was convinced that lycanthropy ran in my family and was scared that I might become something other than myself during a full moon.
There’s another pot where hair won’t grow because of a skateboard accident. I was riding my skateboard behind a bike, holding on, enjoying my free ride until I go too close to the bike wheel and it burned my leg.
There’s a similar spot, about the size of a quarter, on the other leg that I got years later. I used to date a guy that would take me to work down on Wall Street on his motorcycle. If you look really close, I think the brand name of his bike muffler is branded in my leg, and my skin has grown around a left over piece of pantyhose material that melted there, but alas, there is no hair.
        As I got older, I got more sophisticated. I tried a torture device called the Epilady. It really looked viable until I touched it to my leg and realized that it was just ripping my hairs out, one by one. I even tried sanding the hair off recently with Smooth away, but I felt like I was giving my legs rug burn.
With all the torture devices it seems like I would give up, but nothing is more rewarding than my kid feeling my legs and telling me that I do not feel like a cactus anymore, or the look on my honeys face when we are snuggling and he rubs his legs against mine and smiles as he enjoys my smoothness, happy that the only hairy legs in the bed belong to him.
The various spots on my body where hair grows should not connect to one another, and the only hair that should be left au naturel is on top of my head. I do applaud Mo’Nique’s comfort with her choice, but for me, I choose not to give in to my Werewolf side. I will continue to shave, pluck, smooth, wax until I stop growing hair. Its much easier than putting hair gel on my legs to make the hair lay down.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Gurl I am with you on that one... I did the same thing but stole a straight razor from my mom and cut my leg (still have the scar)... I don't feel comfortable walking around with all that hair... I rather go through the torture of shaving, waxing, plucking, etc...

FYI.. the older you get the more chin hairs begin to appear...DAMN!

Ursula Harvey
Ms. Pam said…
I really thing it depends on where you grow up. I grew up in Memphis, and no one I knew during my childhood/teen years shaved their legs. We too considered it a thing white girls did. Now we did shave our armpits, but that was about it. It wasn't until I moved away from Memphis that I started shaving my legs. Which of course I still do, but since I have been on both sides of that coin, I am not quick to judge others. pw2

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