Smooth Legs and Overinvolved Parents

Warning:  DAD, DO NOT READ.  MOM, read at your own risk.  All others: choose now.  This post refers to personal grooming.  If you don't think you know me that well, or want to know me that well, move on to the rant about my overinvolved family at the bottom.

So I'm waiting for one last package to arrive for Christmas.  The pots-and-pans to go with the play kitchen that I am supposed to be putting together this very minute.  But, I hadn't showered in three days, so I decided to do that instead. 

Please note, I had bathed.  Just not showered.  To me, they feel different.  I don't really feel clean until I've showered.  It was really driving me nuts.

One recommendation that came from a friend during my disclosure of depression was to do some personal detailing.  Showing yourself some love and attention should do wonders for your mood.  Given that I sincerely loathe my body and neglect it for recreation, I thought this might be a source of issues for me.  Sounds like good advice.

Specifically, I have been neglecting to shave my legs.  And paint my toenails, but this post is about leg hair, so we'll focus there.  I hadn't shaved my legs in a long time.  Then I decided that it was time, but I only ended up with the energy to do up to my knees.

This is one benefit to single motherhood.  Noone sees your legs from October to March.

While shopping yesterday I see a new Nair product.  In-the-shower hair remover, in a pump bottle, with a little spongy thing.  10+ dollars.  So it had to be good, right?

As I mentioned, I'm expecting one more package from Amazon.  I have been checking out the door all day to see if it is coming.  Nothing yet.  So I gather my supplies, huddle in my tiny closet of a bathroom, and go to work.

See, when you weigh 230+ pounds, you have alot of surface area.  When much of that is your thighs, it takes a long time to do anything related to leg-hair-removal.  I put the face stuff I have on my face so that can be working while I do my legs.

I hear a knock at the door.  I ignore it.  I am naked, with a white mustache, and half-covered from the waist down in cold goop.  I couldn't even get a bathrobe on and make myself presentable.  Leave the fucking package and I'll get it when I'm done.

I hear voices.  That sound like my father's.  Oh no, seriously?

I hear keys in the front door.  I'm still just wiping the cold goop on my legs.  I hear the dog's tags jingle.  My dad yells "hello!". 

"I'm in the bathroom", I reply.  He tells me about the package, that he's taking the dog for a walk, etc.  I'm still spreading goop, naked in the bathroom, wondering that of any time today that the package could come and my dad could show up, why the hell did it have to be now?

Dad gone.  Goop on.  Face goop washed off.  I'm already exhausted.

I get in the shower, trying not to get the water spray directly on my legs, per package instructions.  Yea, whatever.  I try to wet my hair, and when I take a step, I slip, turn, fall into the shower curtain, fall through the shower curtain, hit my hip on the toilet, and catch myself on something.  I fish the sponge out of the baby's potty and regroup.

I wash my hair, since that was the original purpose of this shower thing anyway, before it got hijacked by the legs wanting some attention.  I then take the sponge and, per package directions, scrub in little circles to remove the hair.

So before long, this little sponge is covered in little particles of removed hair.  I guess if the hair had been longer (?!!) it would have rinsed off well.  So now I have a sponge covered in micro-hair.  Ugh.  Ick.  Can we get this over with please?

Legs are done and I'm moving on to underarms, when my legs start ... burning.

Oh, that's right, I have sensitive skin.  Now I remember.  So I'm having visions of chemical burns on my skin, and wondering where the kid's pink bottle of baby lotion is that I can hijack and pour all over my legs when I get out.

I have a clean washcloth to make sure all my surfaces are rinsed, including my nether regions, when I realize that hair is still coming out down there by the clumps.  Areas that weren't really close to the goop (because I'm a little leery of goop to close to the girl parts) are still able to be pulled out - not wiped off, but pulled out.  By the clumps.

Oh my god, get me out of this shower hell right now.

So I rinse, wipe, pull, rinse, rub, sponge, rinse, and I think everything that's coming off is off, and everything that's not is still on.  I get out of the shower and look under the sink to find the pink lotion.  (Organizing all my bathroom stuff was definitely helpful today.)  I yell out the door "is anyone out there?" just to be sure, before running into my room to start slathering the pink goop to stop the chemical reaction that is burning the skin on my legs.

In the mirror I see, on the hip that hit the toilet, a huge (like, 6 inches across, huge) red abrasion on my thigh where I hit the toilet.

That would be the end of the story, except that it's not.  I finish putting lotion on and come out to the living room to type this post.  I'm almost finished, when my phone rings.  It's my dad.  He says:

"Just wanted to make sure you didn't oversleep and forget to go pick up your girl at daycare."

It's 3:19 in the afternoon.

I wasn't asleep, I was in the bathroom.

How does what he said make any sense at all?  Not to mention the fact that I'm almost 37 years old and functioned quite well on a daily basis for 18 years without my dad having to call to wake me up to not oversleep for crap.

This is the second time he's done this.  The first time (the day before Thanksgiving) it was actually after 4:00 pm when he called, and I had mentioned wanting to nap that day, despite not getting the chance to do so, so at least it made sense.  I had been working my ass off all day to get ready for Thanksgiving, and he calls to make sure I didn't oversleep and forget to pick up my kid.

I mean, I find it to be a big fat sign that he doesn't think I can function as an adult, but at least the last time he did it, it was just inappropriate, and not completely nonsensical as well.

This time, I find it to be even more insulting.

Moving in 5 doors away from controlling, overprotective, codependent parents?  Huge mistake.

But now I have smooth legs, so there's that.

Added:  After conversing with my dad, we realized there had been a miscommunication.  He thought I said I was taking a nap when I actually said I was in the bathroom.  So he called my mom, who (he said) got pissed that I was (supposedly) sleeping instead of picking up the girl.  So she had him (he said) call me and wake me up (supposedly) from my nap.

So he threw her under the bus and blamed her for it.  Nice.

The whole thing is fucked up, it doesn't really matter who specifically did what.  They both seem to feel like I can't pick my daughter up from daycare on time like a functional adult and have to be called to be woken up or reminded to do it.  That's the root of the issue.  Whether I was or wasn't asleep and whether she told him to do it or not, is immaterial.