Lydia Aswolf

Celebrating the birthday of Suzanne’s husband, who shall forever be known as Forky for his valiant and brave attempt to use the word “Forky” during a Scrabble game.

Brian, my husband, shall be known as Crutchy, for his courageous attempt to use that as word…but he was joking; Forky was dead serious.

Suzanne shall be known as Curry, for her attempt during her and Forky’s dating days to make him eat the hottest curry possible…all the while batting her oh so innocent looking eyelashes and telling him it was really, really good.

And me?

Call me Bert.

I’ve never had my eyebrows waxed before…but at every nail salon in the Houston area, the nail technicians all look at you and tell you that you’d be vastly more attractive (”You look pretty; very, very pretty”) if you got them done.

I was no match for the peer pressure on this; it took time, however. I fondly recall telling no less than three nail techs, when they whipped out the pretty through ripping hair follicles from those pesky eyebrows “I don’t care if they look like two caterpillars marching across my forehead!” Startled reactions ensued, and I enjoyed it…but they know how to upsell, these clever nail techs.

So I found myself laying back in a chair while a particularly outgoing nail tech laughed much like a witch cackles. She applied the wax, ripped, applied some more, ripped some more. Then it occured to her to ask how I was doing, and I said fine; after all if I’ve went through childbirth with no medication whatsoever…this was nothing.

Then she applied wax between my eyebrows.

Having never had my eyebrows done in any way, shape, or form before, I admit I’m naive.

It has become apparent to me in conversations with Suzanne and other women that they always wax this area.

That said, as my virgin eyebrows didn’t want to leave their positions, the nail tech had to reapply several times to get things to her liking.

After waxing came tweezers…which was okay.

Not thrilling…but okay.

It was when I heard snip, snip, that I was startled.

She was combing my eyebrows and then taking a small pair of scissors to trim them.

Again, this might be laughable to women who have been through the process; to me, it indicated that I might possibly be Sasquatch.

When she was finally done, she smiled and whipped out a mirror with a flourish for me to see the results.

I declined as gracefully as possible, to her shock and dismay.

I can say this; it’s the first time I’ve ever personally witnessed a smile melting off someone’s face.

When I saw Suzanne, she knew at once…and roared with laughter at my tale.

My eyebrows were smarting, and for some reason…

I was still stuck on the in between the eyes thing, and grumpy as hell about it.

So…

Just call me Bert.