During my brief time on the internet, I have received plenty of messages called ‘forwards’ by e-mail. I can only guess that they get their name owing to the fact that they are forwarded from one person to another repeatedly and endlessly. Many of these forwards are meant to be funny and often start by promising great laughs, but in my experience, nothing ever lives up to this ambitious promise. Nothing except the one I’m reproducing below.

It deals with another of those eternally quirky human traits, that of the females feeling compelled to remove whatever body hair that they can find on themselves. Like all other forwards, it is written using typical Forward syntax, with lots of exclamation points, sentences in all-caps, and the like. But whoever it is that wrote this thing actually knows how to write humour, and I assure you, it is quite a barrel of laughs.

Here is it:

All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of  easy, painless removal -

The epilate, scissors,  razors, Nair and now…the wax.

Read on……

My night began  as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids.

I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for  the next few hours:

‘Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the  medicine cabinet.’

So I headed to the bathroom. It was one of  those ‘cold wax’ kits.

No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the  strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart  and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right  off.

No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be?

I mean, I’m not a  genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA  THINK!?!)

So I pull one of the thin strips out. Instead of rubbing  them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it  (’Cold wax,’ yeah…right!) and I lay the strip across my thigh.

Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works!

OK, so it  wasn’t the best feeling, but it wasn’t too bad. I can do  this!

Hair removal no longer eludes me!

I am She-rah,  fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire.

With my next wax strip I move north.

I drop my panties and  place one foot on the toilet.

Using the same procedure, I apply the  wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right  half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt  cheek.

I inhale deeply and brace myself….RRRRRRIIIIPPP!!!!

I’m blind!!!

Blinded from pain!!!!….

OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!!

Vision returning, I notice that I’ve only managed to  pull off half the strip. CRAP!

Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted.

I think I may pass out…must  stay conscious…must stay conscious.

I hear crashing  drums???

Breathe, breathe…………

OK, back to normal.

I want to see my trophy -

a wax-covered strip, the one that  has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it.

I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair, but I am holding only a piece of the strip, it has very little hair on it!!!

Where is the hair???

WHERE IS THE  OTHER PIECE OF THE WAX STRIP???

Slowly I ease my head down, foot  still perched on the toilet.

I see the hair.

The hair that should be on the strip…it’s not!

I touch.

I am touching wax.

I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is  now covered in cold wax and matted hair.

Then I make the next BIG mistake…remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet?

Feeling desperate, I need to do something.

So I put my foot  down.

Sealed shut!??

My butt is sealed shut.

Sealed  shut!

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what  to do and think to myself

‘Please don’t let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!’

What can I do to melt the wax?

Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!!

I’ll run the hottest water I can stand  into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax  should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right???

*WRONG!!!!!!!*

I get in the tub -

The water is  slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment – I sit.

Now, the only thing worse than  having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued  together and then glued to the bottom of the tub…in scalding hot  water.

Which, by the way, I now realize doesn’t melt cold wax.

So, now I’m stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!!

I  call a friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone.

It’s a very good conversation  starter. ‘So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of  the tub!’

There is a bit of a pause. She doesn’t know any secret tricks for removal, but she does try to hide her laughter from me.

She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, ‘Are we talking cheeks or hole or hoo-ha?’

She’s laughing out loud by now…I can hear her.

I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box.

YEAH!!!!! Right!!

I should be the joke of someone else’s night.

While we go through various solutions. I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor .

Nothing feels better than to have your girlie goodies covered in wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then trying to shave the sticky wax off!!

By now the  brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I’m pretty sure  I’m going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event.

My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace….the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really have to lose at this point?

I rub some on and OH MY  STARS!!!!!!!

The scream probably woke the kids!!! It’s sooo painful, but I really don’t care.

‘IT WORKS!!

It works !!’ I  get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up.

I  successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair….

MOST OF THE HAIR IS STILL THERE!!!!

So I just shave it off. Heck, I’m numb by now. Nothing hurts.

I  could have amputated my own leg at this point.

Next week I’m going to try hair color……