The Nair Incident

By the time I was fifteen I had ballooned up to 220lbs. Being at this size, life in high school could be extremely difficult and most of, painful. After coming home from another frustrating day of name calling and crude jokes, at my expense, I decided to do something about my appearance. Since it was nearly too almost impossible to lose eighty-five pounds in one evening, I chose to correct my outrageous bushy eyebrows. I had just the trick-Nair Hair Removal.

        Nair was very popular in the 1980’s, and granted, I felt that I could do this. After all, I had watched mother over the last few years, swabbing it on her eyebrows. Well…, okay underneath her eyebrows. But at my angle standing in the bathroom door, it had looked as if she had applied over, not under!         I went into the bathroom, pulled the Nair out of the cabinet.

Got a cotton swab and preceded to apply it over my eyebrows. I then quickly skimmed the directions looking for the amount of time. The bottle read: For coarse hair leave on for fifteen minutes. Eyebrows are coarse, I thought to myself. Fifteen minutes would work.

        Now keep in mind, my mother and sister were still at work and my brother at football practice. There was not a soul to guide me through what turned out to be a devastating misapprehension.

        Having enough time to catch the rest of Happy Days, I went to the living room to relax. Twenty minutes later, I realized the time and frantically ran to the bathroom to rinse. I used a washcloth to wipe the excess Nair off and noticed that my face was hot, and painful.

        You know at the time I felt truly grown up and might I add-smart. Then it happened, I looked in the mirror. Yikes! This was not good, a pure tragedy. I absolutely had not one strand of hair left above my eyes! Standing there, in front of the mirror reflecting back, my thoughts were scattered, not only was I 220lbs., but now, I was 220lbs. with no eyebrows!         After mother returned home and had finally stopped laughing, she briefed me on the importance of following directions carefully. Now every time I see a commercial or ad for Nair Hair Removal, I quietly laugh to myself and remember the horrifying experience.

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