Friday Firsts: First Time Shaving
(Read about Red’s first over at The Naked Redhead.)
Anyone who has been reading this “Friday Firsts” series should know by now that I have a horrible memory. Knowing that, I give you the story of my first time shaving. All dates are approximate.
Though I lack the beautiful olive-colored skin of the Italian folk, I swear to you, readers, my paternal great-grandparents came over on the boat from Italy. And while God did not bestow upon me some of the coveted attributes of the Italian people, he was gracious enough to bless me with copious amounts of dark hair on my legs.
Can you feel the sarcasm dripping from that last sentence? Well? Can you?
(I think) It was the summer after my fourth-grade year, and finally sick of sporting a forest on my legs, I grabbed one of my mom’s razors while I was in the tub and chopped through the brush (I said brush, people) as best I could. Finally unashamed of my legs, I threw on a pair of shorts and headed outside.
I had a great time playing with the neighborhood kids…until my sister joined us, noticed my smooth-as-a-baby’s-ass legs and sold me out to my mother. Nice. Thanks.
My mom’s wasn’t thrilled with me, even though I told her that it wasn’t my fault! The razor had fallen into the really, really, REALLY(?) murky water and just kind of, well, shaved a bit of my leg on its own. At that point, well, what could I do? I couldn’t walk around missing a patch of hair on my legs, could I? I *had* to even them out, and since I couldn’t regrow my hair at will, I had to shave it all off.
Made sense to me. Mom, well…not so much.
How about you? Was your first time shaving traumatic?
Want more? Check out the Crossover Blog archive!
It was. I was in fifth grade, had the same problem as you. I snuck a shave in with my mom’s razor, and got minor cuts all over my fingers because I thought I had to clean off the blade after every stroke. Nice.
Erin-Ow. Seriously, mother effin’ ow! How did mom react?
Not well. But the next Christmas, she showed her compassion (and embarrassed me), by putting a nice new razor in my stocking.
Oh, Erin! Ow, ow, ow!!!
I don’t remember how old I was, but my oldest cousin sat me down at the end of the dock at my grandparents’ camp and showed me how to shave. I guess you could call it a bonding experience … I mostly wanted to get it over with so I could swim.
Louise-That sounds potentially mortifying. I’m not sure why, but that’s the vibe I get. That said-at least it was your cousin. (=
So. My mom, like yours Jillian, didn’t want me to shave and in fact told my sister and I that because we didn’t know what we were doing, we could die. As we got older, and realized that people were shaving and not dying, my mother was like, “Oh it’s awful and it hurts like hell!” The fear ensued until the sixth grade, I had enough of the hair on my legs (being that I am an Italian as well) and began “nairing” my legs. I used Nair until late high school when my mom was like “Ugh, that sh** smells and it seems like such a process, why don’t you just shave your legs with a razor like every other normal person in this world?”