And last month when I shared my other major beauty faux pas of the summer, it warmed my heart to know that many of you have also suffered at the table of bangs. Sometimes a girl just needs to know she’s not alone.
On a completely different side note, can I just tell y’all that I used my new WordPress search feature to find all the posts where I’ve mentioned my beauty mishaps and by just entering the word “mustache”, it pulled up like 15 different posts. I think I have some serious issues.
Anyway, about a month ago, I mentioned that I was in the process of getting laser hair removal treatments. It was a long, sad tale of woe with much whining and crying about the pain. The terrible pain. The unendurable, heat of 1,000 suns pain. Compelling stuff, really.
Anyway, after that treatment I asked Laser Girl if there was anything I could do, besides taking 14 shots of Jose Cuervo, to lessen the pain. She told me that I could purchase a tube of Dermacaine for the bargain basement price of $40.00. I immediately decided it would be the best $40.00 I’d spend all year, or at least for that week.
Hook me up with the Dermacaine, Laser Girl.
She handed me my tube of miracle cream with instructions to apply the cream 1 hour before my next treatment. Honestly, my upper lip and underarms were burning so badly, the prospect of the Dermacaine was the only reason I made another appointment.
Fast forward to last week.
I obsessively waited until 1 hour and 10 minutes prior to my hair removal appointment. At just the right moment, I opened up the miracle in a tube and began to apply it to all areas that would be experiencing the torture. And then, I just sat and waited for it to take effect.
After a short while, I began to feel some tingling on my upper lip. Good sign. Very good sign. Who says no pain, no gain? I am totally going to beat this whole pain thing. Ha Ha, I am so clever and wise. I am so glad I spent the $40.00 because now that laser will feel like the whisper of 1,000 fairies.
And then, because I am an idiot, I licked my lips. Immediately, my tongue went numb.
I don’t know why I licked my lips. They weren’t dry. I hadn’t eaten anything. It was just a reflex. A dumb reflex. And just as I was realizing that I could no longer feel my tongue, I realized I could no longer feel my throat. All my internal organs were completely numb.
I drove to my appointment and called Gulley on my cell phone. I could barely talk for all the not feeling of my tongue and internal organs. I honestly think even my teeth were numb.
I arrived at Laser Girl’s office and she looked confused to see me, or maybe she was just staring at the drool running down my chin due to the fact that I couldn’t feel anything. I said, “Heyth, I hath appotmet dith mownin”, and she looked at her calendar and I wasn’t on the schedule. She explained she was on her way out the door for a mammogram because she was having surgery, and asked if I could reschedule.
And here is where I’d like to write phonetically how it sounded as I explained to her that I was all strung out on the Dermacaine and I hated to waste part of my $40.00 investment in pain relief and I’d driven 30 minutes to get to her office. But I’m not going to, because I am very busy contemplating other ways to make myself hideous. Anyway, she took pity on me, or more likely, wanted to get my drooling, mumbling presence out of the waiting room filled with only beautiful things and perfect, cosmetic miracles of modern medicine. She said she had time to go ahead with the appointment.
She also confessed that her mammogram and impending surgery were purely cosmetic in nature, thus relieving me of my guilt in begging her to wait a few more minutes for her mammogram. I wish she and her 2 new friends many happy years together.
I walked into the procedure room, put on my laser goggles, so as not to sear my corneas, and was perfectly at peace knowing I would feel nothing. Ahhh, it’ll be like a few minutes at the spa.
Or a few minutes of pure, unmitigated torture.
Curse you, Dermacaine. Curse you. You and your faulty pharmacodynamics.
How is it possible to make my small intestine numb, but yet my underarms retained all feeling despite being slathered in Dermacaine?
And the best part?
I still have 2 treatments left.
Next time I’m bringing in my bottle of Wild Turkey.