Slippery Slope

When my older sister was in high school, she decided that she would never shave her legs. She conceded to shaving her armpits, but the legs, no! Then one day, after months, or possibly years of this policy, she took a package of disposable razors, shut the bathroom door, and went to work. I waited outside the door for the verdict.

"How did it go?" I asked.

"It took almost the whole package, but it's done," she declared, showing off her smooth flesh.

"Yuck," was my response.

When she was in college, she was living in Seattle and surrounded by fellow young women dancers who were anti-shaving. Their dance teacher one day berated them for inflicting their hairy armpits on her day after day. In response, the group went out and tried to dye their underarm hair purple. Having never tried to dye underarm hair, they did not realize that dark hair needs to be bleached in order to take in any other color, so they all ended up with purple armpits, but no change in hair color. I don't think either they or the teacher were pleased with the results.

Fast forward 12 years. I am laying in the sun in California, my sister is also laying in the sun in California, only about 200 miles north of me. She is relaxing by the side of the pool at a conference. "Guess what I am doing?" she asks, via cell phone.

"I have no idea."

"I stared electrolysis hair removal! I can't take shaving anymore and waxing just isn't cutting it. Down with razor burn! My skin is just too sensitive for this nonsense."

"Really? I've been wondering about that. How much does it cost?"

"Um, yeah. That's the catch. I decided how much I was willing to spend, you know a couple hundred, and then you go in there and of course they have all these perfect, gorgeous women working there, and they tell you 'You can have package a, b, or c' and all the packages are about 3 times more than I am willing to spend and include all these crazy additional treatments, but by the end of their explanation of all the packages, you think, oh, wow! I could save so much money and get all of these treatments! Fantastic! Until you leave and do the math and realize you just totally blew your budget and 'saved money' spending more than you ever intended. It's a slippery slope! So if you go in, you have to totally have your mind set and ignore everything they say."

"So, how did the electrolysis go?"

"Well it hurts. My god, it totally hurts. And I have to keep going back for more. But, while I was in the treatment room, the lady showed me all of these machines that do all of these insane treatments- like remove any spider veins. And so she gave me an example of how it worked. And it worked! She got rid of some of my spider veins. And then she told me that treatment costs a few thousand dollars. But now, here I am sitting here at the pool and scouring my legs for any spider veins that I need to remove."

"You are nuts!" I laughed. "I still remember your first pedicure! It was only three years ago!"

She laughed too, "That's what I am talking about! It's a goddamn slippery slope!"