Parenting

The Struggle to Find a Good Lady Groomer

by Patti Ford
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Originally Published: 

Finding a good lady groomer is more difficult than choosing a gynecologist.

I don’t get weirded out about doctors looking at my in-between because that’s so clinical. Sure, your stuff is being violently prodded by metallic things while some chick in a nurse’s outfit is standing in a corner watching, but at least you’re partially covered with a paper gown. My doctor even puts a paper-towel sized sheet over my legs and makes a curtain to hide behind like he’s some kind of Wizard of Vag. And that’s great, because then I don’t have to see his face and analyze every expression and wonder why the heck he’s smirking, smiling, frowning, or looking liked he’s just plain frightened of my lady junk. One time he even asked me if he could bring some interns in to check out my stuff, and I said, “Sure! The more the merrier!”

That’s how much I don’t care.

But going to a waxer is different.

Without the white medical coat, the stethoscope, and the Harvard degree, things take on a totally different vibe.

Things go from clinical to peep show real fast when you’re lying on a table, butt naked from the waist down, waiting for someone wearing jeans and a t-shirt to go poking around your in-between. Even if they’re wearing a pair of those pink scrubs, I’m not fooled into thinking that they’re nursey or doctory. There’s a place just down the road from my house where I could go buy my own scrubs if I wanted to. I could wear them everywhere every day, but that sure doesn’t mean you should let me give you a colonoscopy.

So finding someone who makes you feel comfortable and trusting is kind of a big deal.

After trying a few different people, I had finally found one that I loved. The pain level was low, the conversation was fun, and the awkwardness wasn’t even an issue because we were having such a good time talking that I totally forgot she was grooming my cracks and crevices.

Then one day I received the call that no waxee ever wants to receive: She had left to take another job. A better job. A job that didn’t involve looking at my vagina.

She was going to be a hairstylist.

She was leaving the south and heading north.

She was moving uptown, and my downtown was gonna suffer.

It was like my marriage was ending and I had to start “dating” again, and every first date involved letting the person see my crotch up close. So basically I got a divorce and became a whore.

Last week I tried the third in what was turning out to be a very long line of rebound waxers.

This new girl was very quiet. “Quiet” as in she didn’t say a word. There was no music in the room either. So basically I was just lying there, pantsless, legs akimbo, in a room so eerily quiet that you could hear a pubic hair drop. That kind of silent awkwardness is just not OK with me. I like chit-chat. I like to tell jokes. I like laughter. I like singing. I like to yell out inventive curses as the wax is brutally ripped off of my nether parts. (Sweet Baby Jesus on a Tilt-a-Whirl and Holy Ballsack are two of my favorites.)

But this girl wasn’t having that.

Plus, she had long hair. We’re talkin’ Crystal Gayle, ’60s Cher, Duggar girl kinda long.

Do you know what happens when someone with long hair is waxing your in-between? Their hair dangles around down there. It dangles all over your lady junk. And I’m gonna be totally open and honest with you guys right now and tell you that when you have a girl tossing her long locks all over your pubic area, you start to feel kinda lesbiany. But supposedly you aren’t a lesbian.

So to offset these unusual feelings, you close your eyes and try to imagine that it’s a long-haired dude down there, but the only dudes that pop into your mind are Fabio and Steven Tyler. Then you start to gag a little bit and decide that you’d much rather be an accidental surprise lesbian than imagine being with those two freaks. But just as you’re starting to make peace with your newfound lesbian fantasy, it stalls out when you recognize that her hair might get in the wax, causing the two of you to be stuck together in the most awkward of ways for all of eternity. And what do you do when you have another chick permanently attached to your lady garden? What kind of life can you have? What kind of job can you get aside from becoming a weird porn duo or a Sideshow Freak?

And this whole time the room is so damn quiet that your mind can’t stop over-thinking everything.

Normally when you have a stranger down in your valley, you really don’t wanna focus on it too much. You want distractions. So once again you’re missing your old waxer. You’re missing the funny conversations you had. You’re missing the way you both sang along to all of the cheesy ’70s love songs she used to play. You’re missing ALL of the things that took your mind off of the fact that your lady hair was being violently removed at a follicular level.

Then, as you look up at the ceiling praying for this to be over, you notice a water stain and you start laughing and comment aloud that it looks exactly like a vagina.

But there is no acknowledgement that she heard you.

And there is no laughter.

There is only more awkward silence.

Even though that water stain TOTALLY looks like a vagina.

You know that your old waxer would have agreed. Your old waxer just “got” you. Your old waxer laughed at all of your jokes.

Your old waxer had short hair and she DID NOT get that short hair ANYWHERE close to your lady junk.

I miss my old waxer. I miss her bad.

If you see her, please tell her to look for me. I shouldn’t be hard to find.

I’ll be the one that looks like she’s smuggling Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter in her bikini bottom. Or has a chia pet growing out of her pants zipper (Va Va Vagina!).

There’s also a good chance that you might catch me on an episode of Finding Bigfoot. I have big feet, I’m tall, and without a waxer I’ll have so much excess body hair that I’ll practically be begging to be the target of an Animal Planet investigation.

If I’m sitting by the pool one day and see people with binoculars and a giant net moving around in the bushes making Sasquatch calls, I’ll totally know what’s up.

When I was a little girl, I always dreamed that I’d someday be on a TV show. I guess I just pictured a TV version of Annie or a sort of Carol Burnett Show type situation. Y’know, something that could really showcase my hilarious pratfalls and singing abilities. I never really imagined that it would revolve around my hairy vagina.

Little girls have lots of dreams, but that’s not usually one of them.

At least I hope not.

Related post: Why I’ll Never Have Another Brazilian Again

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