Les Bonnes Choses

Today is chilly. Not middle-of-January chilly, but with a forecast high of freezing, it's cold enough. Two stops before I got off the bus, some teenage kid gets on, wearing jeans and a short sleeved tee-shirt. My first thought was that he was trying to be cool. But then I thought he could just be mentally deficient. And then I decided that perhaps I was being unfair because this was Kipp's Lane, after all, and there's some subsidized housing nearby, so maybe he doesn't even have an appropriate jacket. So I got off the bus, mulling over how "too cool", "too stupid" and "too poor" might be sadly related to one another.

Speaking of "too stupid", I spent the last hour getting beauty wax off my hands. I'll stop you right there. I do not use the product, as will soon be apparent. I take a Gillette Mach-3 to my head every 3rd or 4th day. Rebecca's aunt, however, is an aesthetician, and it is she who owns the wax melting pot that was being returned from Rebecca's mom. Last night when I brought it in, I left it on its side because I had no idea what it was, or what the consequence would be. Sticky wax everywhere. So I felt obliged to try to clean the damn thing. This is the part of the story where it becomes apparent I have never touched the stuff before: I didn't wear gloves. I was clever enough to use an embossing torch to melt the wax so I could wipe it off of the pot. However, I managed to get the wax all over my hands. And the bloody stuff was extremely difficult to get off. It reminded me of those sticky paper mouse traps. Hot water and soap didn't cut it. Alcohol didn't work either. Using a sharp knife to scrape it off only removed the bulk of it, but my hands were still extremely sticky. In the end, I used campfire fuel (which is a flammable solvent) and, inspired by a CBC radio segment on household stain removal, peanut butter (which is oil-based, and mildly abrasive).

And to the lady-folk who deliberately apply wax to their bodies ... what the hell?