Hot Fuzz

So the deal at the moment with this here new life is that my OH goes up to London on a Wednesday night and comes back late on a Friday.

Now many many years ago when I was a student we had a long distance relationship for 2 years - I was in Leeds and he was in London. He would regularly trundle his way northwards on the dreaded National Express Coach late on a Friday night and I would great him in an enthusiastic fashion armed with good food and beer looking seductive and sultry (please bear in mind this was pre-kids - I used to spend an ENTIRE Friday afternoon getting ready. That life now twinkles in the darkness, far far away, like a parallel universe).

So this 'being reunited on a Friday night' is like a blast from the past and in anticipation of the great moment of his return (after, erm, 48 hours apart....) I decided I should at least have a shower and make myself look semi-groomed (moving house with 2 small children doesn't give you a lot of time for tending to the finer details).

And thus it was that I realised I needed to de-fuzz (I was, it appears, rapidly returning to a sort of Planet of the Apes Yeti-like status).

No problem - just need to grab my razor.

Oh.

The razor was last seen in my old house and could be at the bottom of one of approximately 70 unpacked boxes.

No worries.

I will 'borrow' my OH's razor (I know men get very upset about this - I'm not actually sure why. Surely shaving your legs ONCE with their razor can't do that much damage? It's not like your borrowing it to whittle a tree trunk into matchsticks or something? Then again....).

Small catch with this plan.

OH's razor is in London with OH.

Darn.

I scouted round in vain for something else that could remove several square feet of hair and I finally came across a can of spray-on hair removal cream which someone gave me as a free 'trial' about 6 years ago.

Now the last time I used hair removal cream (circa 12 years ago) it a) stank b) burnt like hell and c) didn't even remove the hair properly.

I can now confirm that 6 years on hair removal cream a) stinks b) burns like hell and c) doesn't remove the hair properly.

Obviously it may have improved in the 6 years since the can I own was made but I wouldn't bet on it.

Anyway, ever hopeful it would actually 'do what it said on the tin', I put the kids to bed, made sure they were asleep, stripped naked and doused myself liberally with the noxious ointment.

Unfortunately the nozzle was rather over-enthusiastic in the rate it emitted the foam and I managed to jet it across the bedroom, coating the cobalt blue shagpile in our bedroom with it (did i tell you this house has 'interesting' decor?). At this point I noticed a warning notice on the can 'DO NOT USE ON CARPETED SURFACES'.

Interesting.

I was unsure what was about to happen. Was the carpet about to be denuded? Or perhaps melt into a toxic soup?

I wasn't able to ponder this long as at around this point my legs began to burn.

Now I'm unsure of the science behind hair removal cream but surely it must work by basically chemically dissolving/burning the hair off?! And skin has a very similar make up to hair.....Something tells me long term prolonged use it best avoided. Sod the shagpile - what about my bodily coating!

Anyway alarmed by the burning I tried to redistribute the thicker bits of cream (due to the exteme power of the nozzle it was inches thick in places) around my body a bit and generally just spread it everywhere (even though most of my body is not covered in hair).

At the point son number two started to cry.

Naked, covered in toxic foam, stinking and alive with the sensation of mild chemical burning I contemplated my options.

As I thought through my choice of actions, I ran my hands through my hair.......

MY HAIR!

Well that narrowed down my options.

Narrowed them down to sprinting into the shower as fast as my legs would carry me......

The combination of the shower and a kind of plastic scraping device (not unlike one of those things you use to deice car windscreens) did get rid of most of the unwanted hair and (thank god!) the hair on my head was unaffected.

However, on leaving the shower I realised something slightly alarming.

The floor of the bathroom was covered in what looked like clumps of fur. In fact it looked like a small rat (possibly a mouse) has been killed and plucked by some kind of bird of prey.

I looked left, I looked right, I looked up, I looked down......

Oh.

Where I had redistributed the cream I had taken it right to the top of my legs and, erm (there's no dignified way of saying this) bits of cream had got into 'the lady area'. But only bits. And they hadn't been there long enough to effectively remove the hair they had touched. So tangled, partially chemically disintegrated looking clumps were falling out, leaving other patches totally untouched and further patches just slightly damaged looking.

You've heard of the Brazilian?
The Hollywood?
Now meet the 'Dog with Mange' look.

Jeez.

Less of the Playboy look, more 'Veterinary Weekly'.

My options were limited. The toddler was still crying so I couldn't reapply the cream and go again (plus the way the cream burnt told me that reapplying it to 'that' area would result in more than patchy pubic hair) so I decided to give the area a good buffing with a towel and make sure the lights were off at bedtime.

Slight problem. As time went on more and more bits kept sort of disintegrating and coming away. There was a helpline number on the can but you can be darned if you think I'm going to phone a complete stranger and say 'oh hello, sorry to bother you but I've accidentally just coated my pubic region with a 6 year old can of your product and now I look like I've got some kind of disease - I don't have access to a razor - advice please?' so, having sorted the toddler I phoned a friend (as you do).

Once she'd finished rolling about on the floor laughing she pointed out that some women leave a trail of rose petals leading to the bedroom door......... Only I could leave a trail of chemically damaged pubic hair.......

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