More Eyebrows

Oh my Lord, Jesus. First, let me start by saying that I passed my driver’s license exam on the first try.

Next, I am a college graduate, and I hold a bonafide, legitimate degree from a recognized university.

Lastly, I have an Advanced Paralegal Certificate, having graduated with honors, also from a college whose program is recognized by the American Bar Association.

All that being said, there are some people into whose hands certain tools of a trade should never fall – and I am one into whose hands a certain wax warmer hair removal machine should never have fallen but did. Unfortunately for him.

Here is the part where I insert my sincerest-sounding apologies to him, my boyfriend of six years, whom I actually finagled into being, as he rightly termed, a “guinea pig.” And of this I am certain: Pretty much all guinea pig species, including Skinny Pig, the hairless guinea pig, now have more hair than he has over his eyes.

How his eyebrows being prematurely emancipated from his forehead – and my being responsible for that emancipation – came to be is quite simple: I tend to overestimate my ability to learn new things. Then I tend to far reach in my estimation, and that far reach typically extends to some poor, unsuspecting soul who loves me so much that they will sacrifice their better senses to my estimation. It’s a ratio issue really.

And in this case, the ratio is one me to two eyebrows, and I won both of them…on a muslin epilating strip.

Naturally, I want to state unequivocally that this is all Jimmy Sim’s fault. Jimmy Sims was the boy who used to ride me around the neighborhood on the back of his banana-seat bike. He’s the boy who gave me my first gold ring, from the Central Florida Fair, with my initial “S” stamped into the top. He’s also the boy who, in high school freshman year, actually allowed me to cut his hair after I mentioned, in passing, that I could cut hair. I mean, I believed I could.

Who knew that all of those movies I had watched showing a haircut using a bowl applied upside down on a head would result in a haircut that looked exactly like a haircut done with a bowl applied upside down on a head? Nonetheless, while the jury is still out on the success, or lack thereof (according to Jimmy’s mom) of Jimmy’s haircut, I have had years and years to hone all sorts of skills, but cosmetology is not one of them.

Poor Bill. That’s the eyebrow-less boyfriend.

And he’s not technically eyebrow-less now. He just has what I describe as a brand-new, emoji-like expression, somewhere between a look of horror (shock, really), and pure, unadulterated confusion. I say it’s sort of like a cross between a minion’s, “Whaaaaat?!” and an Angry Bird – a very, very angry, Angry Bird.

          Naturally, I want to state that the whole problem likes with the beauty-supply system. I mean, what kind of industry allows people, with no credentials whatsoever, to come in and purchase a wax warmer machine and all of the accoutrements? Warm wax? I mean, how soothing does that sound? I hear “warm wax,” and I think, “Spa.” I think, “Serenity.”

So, for $39.99, I received a wax warmer, muslin, which is fancy for “cheap fabric,” some tongue-depressor things, a collar to go around the neck of the wax, and the wax.

What a deal, right?

Oh! And I got a tutorial DVD, too.

So, one fine Saturday afternoon, I pulled out the warmer, put a collar around the wax bucket, dropped the wax into the warmer cavity, and turned the machine on high, as instructed.

Then I settled down in front of the television to watch the tutorial.

Sure, the store had a few other items shown on the DVD, but they weren’t critical. Or so I thought.

Their tongue depressors were much smaller “contour applicators,” so I figured I’d just crack my oversize depressors in half lengthwise and call it even. Unfortunately, size does matter. The contour applicator determines how much wax is gooped out, and then how much of that goop is placed on the face.

Really, I should have started with someplace sight unseen, like his back, but it’s not as hairy as his eyebrows – or at least it wasn’t.

So I watched the video once, quickly, and I was, as we say in the South, “chomping at the bit” to get started. I’ve always been like that. I’d rather do than watch. Once I grew up, I learned that I could describe myself as a “kinesthetic learner,” and people liked that a whole lot better than what I really am, which is just plain “antsy.”

“Bill!” I called. “The wax is ready.”

I really didn’t know if it was or wasn’t, but I wanted to get started.

Dutiful to a fault, here he came.

Now, as confident as I was after never having used a wax warmer and having glimpsed at the five-minute DVD, I was still insistent that he put a towel over his bare chest. Boy, am I ever glad for that. Some things just happen like that – a protection in disguise – proving the existence of guardian angels. On a side note, the GA for Bill’s chest showed up that day, but that Eyebrow Angel needs some lessons on absenteeism.

Bill leaned back his head, and I swirled the now-viscous substance that looked a lot like honey. How is the world can something so serene, so soothing looking, turn so quickly? It’s like watching the movie, “Elf,” when Will Farrell comes upon the raccoon and asks if it needs a hug. Then the raccoon goes all rabid. My wax turned like that.

I have to admit, there is something legit about “beginner’s luck.” I got some that day – or rather Bill did. Somehow the drippy wax went pretty smoothly over his left eye. Except for a glob that fell in the center.

If that one blotch hadn’t landed where it did, he wouldn’t look as if he is now raising his eyebrow in wonderment at everything that I say.

“Honey, do you want stir fry for dinner?” I ask, and he turns to me, and it looks as if he’s asking me a question and that he’s simultaneously stunned.

I imagine his response. “STIR FRY, YOU SAY! WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?”

Looking back, I should have sprung for the wax remover. That’s the stuff you use when you use the wrong-size tongue depressor and the wax lands in a blob.

Now, anyone who has used warm wax will tell you, this stuff is like mastic. I have no doubt that is what I’ll use the next time I tile a floor (more on that later). Hot wax sticks. It sticks too well, in fact, so much so that if you don’t own the industrial-strength was remover, which the beauty-supply store failed to insist that I purchase, the only way that you are removing the wax is by placing down muslin and ripping.

Which I did.

It is difficult to describe the weird feeling one gets when one is looking down at a face and seeing no eyebrow where once there was one. That strange feeling is compounded by seeing a strip of fabric in one’s hand and a perfectly arched eyebrow – now detached from what it should be – on that fabric. It’s surreal, really.

And not surreal in a good way but more like, “Oh my God, what have I done? How in the hell am I going to fix this? He’s going to kill me,” sort of surreal.

So, I did what only I can manage to do. I moved forward without trepidation or pause. I was certain that if I could do the second one better, the first one might not look so, so, so, well, bare.

Spoiler alert: It didn’t work.

I applied the wax to the second eyebrow, but I have to admit, I was shaking with adrenalin. I was shaking thinking about what was going to happen when he looked in the mirror. And frankly, shaky hands and wax and eyebrows don’t mix well.

If the first one had that one blob, the second one looked like an EKG reading with one small difference. Instead of flat lining, my EKG rose sharply about one inch from the end of his eye. In other words, I took off half of his right eyebrow.

I pretty much knew when the wax was down. Again, I defer to the fact that the beauty-supply industry failed me. I knew, at that point, that I couldn’t just explain to him that the wax was all over the place. I was torn between being afraid that he’s want to look and that he’d notice then that his other eyebrow was MIA. So I just kept going.

I laid down the muslin. I ironed the wax with my finger – three times in the direction of the hair – according to the DVD instructions.

I grasped the end of the muslin going against the grain of the hair, and I ripped.

Yes. I. Did.

I looked down and raised both of my intact eyebrows, and I smiled. I learned that technique in my “Basic Lifesaving” course in college.

“Never, never happen upon a victim and say, ‘Oh no! You’re in for it now!’” our instructor taught us.

So, I employed the Bob Marley, “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” face, even while I knew that catastrophe was moments away.

I don’t own a wax warmer removal machine anymore.

          I’m pretty sure that my boyfriend will come back to me once his eyebrows return and people stop snickering.

          In the meantime, I’m eyeing those false eyelashes that they sell at that same supply store and thinking, “How difficult can those be to apply?”