310 Days - The Bikini Wax Chronicles - Part ONE

Wednesday, June 6^th, 12:41 pm, Vinings

The air swirled with acrylic dust and the scent of cheap acetone. The background noise consisted of a medley of drill buzzing, water rippling and Asian women giggling; just as I had remembered it. It had been years since I stepped through that glass door… years. But the time had come and not a moment too soon. I only wonder if She would remember me.

“Allo lady! Wha you need to-day?”

All eyes were now upon me. I stood – all 5’10” of me – tall and confident, yet trying to find a voice that would seem natural to the seven or eight Vinings housewives now staring in my direction from behind their Us magazine pages they were flipping with their Cartier ringed fingers attached to their Collagen injected hands.

“Hi! (already unnatural, you stupid bitch) I just need… a…brows. Wax brows? And, uh…. (insert circular hand motion in the general vicinity of the area that children were pushed out of) a, uhhh…. Bikini?”

After a split-second eternity, She turned to two of her cohorts who neither raised their heads from their middle-aged foot-ridden lifestyles or broke their furious acts of nail filing and barked something in Korean. They Korea’d back. Then She Korea’d back, more loudly. And this went on until She finally looked up at me, with her toothy, wicked, still-not-sure-of-her-sexual-preference smile and said…

“You come back, ONE O’CLOCK. You come ONE O’CLOCK. I take care you. I rembuh you. You see me, many time. I rembuh. You come ONE… O’CLOCK.”

She did. She rembuh’d me. Her. The one they call… The Waxer.

Wednesday, June 6^th, 12:56 pm, Vinings

There was no need for me to “come back” at one o’clock since I simply stayed there playing on my smart phone, nor did I understand why she *yelled* one o’clock every time she said it. I pondered this in my now nail-polish-snifting brain and wondered if this was a Korean thing. Like, did citizens of Korea yell the time when asked? Was it cultural? Who was I to say? Should I yell it back when she asks about my next appointment to show that I understand her culture, and wish to show my appreciation of it?

“God, the smell in this joint can really get to a person’s train of thought” said my now weakened thought-thingy-in-head-spot and as I stared down at a Carrie Underwood recipe for something vegetarian that I would never eat, make or think about again, I heard the cry…

“Isss before ONE O’CLOCK. I get you uhrly, see?”

“Yes!” I replied, wondering again if I should yell the time in response. I mistakenly decided I should and let loose with “ONE O’CLOCK WAS PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” to which I received three Gucci-wearing glances, two freshly-blond-highlighted gasps and what I believe to be four Asians cursing at me or crying with me… still not sure.

“Why you yell?” said The Waxer. “Oh,” said I, the nervous waxee. “Just, excited!” Said I, The Idiot.

“I’m excited too.” said The Waxer. “I rembuh you. You sooooo beautiful! Room two. You get naked. I come in soon, okay? You get ready for me; I come in. Okay beautiful. Sooooo beautiful.”

Wednesday, June 6^th, 1:05 pm, Vinings

Nine minutes had passed since I had been mortified into yelling the time at a Korean-run nail/wax/massage salon and I now sat naked with nothing but a bright green hand towel covering my girly bits and staring at a heart shaped velvet pillow that I assume I was supposed to lay my head upon. Bright green and bright red and a naked me and the muffled sounds of Asian chatter. I felt like a walking, breathing acid trip being had by an American D.J. spinning abroad at 4 am before the club really got crowded over Christmas vacation. What… the FUCK… IS THIS PLACE?”

“I’M RADY; YOU RADY?!” Burst The Waxer as she so gently abruptly smashed through the door a la the Korean version of a stunted growth, transgender Bruce Lee.

“I’m ready!” said I, The Idiot, with more enthusiasm than I ever should have.

“I rembuh you. You so beautiful. You rembuh me? You always come to me. I always do you, yeh? You rembuh, right? You wahn brow too? I do brow firs. You wahn thin? How you wahn?”

How I wahn? Now this is actually a question I can wrap my head around. How exactly do I wahn? Do I wahn thin? Do I wahn little bushy? Little thick? Do I wahn shaped? How do I wahn? I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.

“Umm… I guess, shaped and a little thick, please. And, tweezed in spots.”

“Yes, beautiful, yes. I do for you. So beautiful. Soooooo beautiful.”

And it was at this point, which was probably the seventh “sooo beautiful” mark, that I started to get a wee bit nervous. I mean, there’s being nice, and there’s trying to make your clients feel at ease, and then, there’s just being downright fucking creepy, which as I lay in the tchotchke-laden room of pain, was starting to seem like the obvious answer to the question of “what is this chick’s deal?” The Waxer was creeping me out, and dammit, she was only working on my brows.

To Be Continued.