I Don't Believe in Hairy Eyebrows

“Honey, looks like you haven’t been here in a while.”

The stylist raised her eyebrows as I walked in to wax mine. I explained that I had a 3-month-old at home, but by the twist in her mouth there was no excuse good enough to throw one’s eyebrow maintenance to the wind. I wasn’t about to tell her I once went a year without a haircut.

Truthfully my caterpillar brows did need some attention. In my defense, when spit up and poop are not uncommon accessories, my eyebrows are not Public Enemy #1. Even without the semi-legitimate new baby excuse, I’m hopeless when it comes to beauty regimes. Until recently I had never purchased makeup. I don’t own a curling iron. I rarely paint my nails. I don’t moisturize. I have no idea how to use an eyelash curler. I don’t need to go on. Back to the salon.

I cautiously leaned my hairy eyebrows against her cushion, fully expecting the stylist to whip out a bushhawk since the situation was so dire.

“Do they normally wax the top and bottom of your brow?” she asked, rolling up her sleeves to get to work.

“I think so,” I responded.

She shook her head. “That goes against everything I believe in.”

She probably didn’t believe in the Democratic Party or unsweetened iced tea, either.

Since it was Spanish Inquisition Day, I was grilled on everything about my eyebrow practices – including the shape of my eyebrows. Why was the left brow uneven, you ask? Because a couple days earlier I took a razor to it in an attempt to rectify the problem myself. As if I hadn’t already gotten into enough trouble with shaving. Look, I never claimed to be a beauty expert. I never even claimed to have awesome ideas all the time. I’m just a girl who would rather crank out another blog post than head to the salon for an eyebrow wax. This is my life. 

Then she warned me that the wax would be hot.

O, okay, thanks.

I quipped that I wasn’t worried about the pain since I didn’t get an epidural when I had my daughter and, to my surprise, she said that was a great idea. According to her, there are far too many C-sections these nowadays. Doctors give us too many options. She pushed her babies out without drugs, and women these days should do the same.

I was starting to like this abrasive Southern woman. You know me, mention birth and I’m all ears.

She waxed on, she waxed off. Soon, my eyebrows were sporting sharp angles again. All was well in the world.

“If you ever come on back, I’ll take care of you.” She assured me as I left. I liked how she added the qualifier “if you ever come on back.”

Because clearly she understood it could be a while.