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December 30, 2005
A Christmas Gift the Gestapo Would Love
For the past four days, I have been in torment. Somehow, my Christmas cold--which came and went as quickly as Santa Claus on his sleigh--left in its wake a sinus headache. And not just any sinus headache, but one where any vertical movement of my head results in waves of agony spilling out of my eyesockets and cascading throughout my body. At any given second, I want to scream in pain and explore whether a fork up my nose would improve my situation.
I've taken decongestants, but then read that they can actually make sinus pain worse (especially if the pain isn't accompanied by congestion), so then I stopped. And then it was suggested that perhaps I should just try a different kind of medication, so I tried Tylenol Sinus and Benadryl Sinus, and even Nyquil (if only for the blissful sleep it allows me). But nothing worked. At this point, I'm ready to call it a brain tumor and have done with it.
But even with this excruciating pain, which deprives me even of the simple things in life--like the screeching sound of Janie's voice, pretending for HOURS to be Serafina my kitten--this anguish was nothing, NOTHING compared to the joys I experienced this afternoon when I tried out Jessica's Christmas present: an epilator.
If you aren't familiar with the concept of epilation, it's most basic definition is "the removal of the entire hair, including the part below the skin." And just in case you don't quite get it, here's the product description from Amazon:
Quickly remove hair from your legs, bikini line and underarms with the Braun Silk-epil Soft Perfection. Unlike shaving, this unique electric system uses a series of tweezers to pull out hair as short as 0.5mm and remove stubble that lies flat against the skin. The EfficiencyPro clip makes sure that the tweezing head keeps in contact with your skin, so you remove more hairs per stroke. A 4-way pulsating pain softener stimulates the skin to offset the pulling sensation, making your epilation experience is as comfortable as possible. Includes a silver mesh carrying case. Made in USA.
Imagine the scene from the 40 Year Old Virgin, where he's waxed within an inch of his life. Then, imagine that instead of a wax strip, which cleanly (if painfully) removes the hair in one fell swoop, a tool resembling a cross between a hand-held weedwacker and a rotating set of tweezer clamps was slowly applied to the skin. It's like being electrocuted (was that the "skin stimulation" the product description referred to?), tweezed, and tortured--all at the same time.
Yes, there was blood (I'm not clear if it was from the plucking of the hairs, or the occasional nip of the skin). Yes, there was pain. I'm happy to say there were no tears, but I did nearly bite my tongue off the first time the epilator touched my armpit. And when it was all over, I realized I was covered in a sheen of sweat. Merry Christmas to me.
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And now, a scene from yesterday's interaction with Janie (aka Serafina the kitten):
Me: You know Janie, one of the reasons I love having cats is that they can play by themselves. In fact, sometimes they play in a completely different room!
Janie: (offended, sulks out of the room)
Me: (sighs with relief, as 20 minutes of shrill MEOW, MEOW, MEOW is about all I can take at once)
Janie: (a few minutes later, at the doorway) Excuse me, do any of you have a cat?
Me: I do.
Janie: A cat named Serafina?
Me: Yes. Where is she?
Janie: (matter-of-factly) Your cat is dead.
Me: WHAT??
Janie: Your cat was in the woods and a wild penguin came up and shot her with a gun. Yup, she's dead.
Me: (speechless)
