Sonny and Cher

Because of our height difference, it was inevitable that Cindy and I would dress up one time as “Sonny and Cher” for Halloween. Despite wearing name tags to make explicit who we were portraying, most people mistook Cindy for Juan Valdez, the Colombian coffee farmer. Unlike Cindy, I found this quite humorous and begged her to keep the moustache on even after we got home from the party. I remember telling her, “Oh come on Juan, I haven’t kissed someone with a moustache since 1994.”

I was thinking of the photograph shown above as I sat in the Windsor Day Spa waiting to get waxed. Cindy had been my personal groomer for many years and I was convinced that, if given the chance, she would have made a brilliant esthetician. 

Cindy would often talk about buying a laser and starting her own hair removal enterprise. In fact, a few of this blog’s readers are amongst the many she tried to convince to go into business with her. Cindy had the return on investment statement memorized, “We’ll buy a top-of-the-line laser and then all we’ll need to do are 100 perianals, 150 backs, 200 bikinis, 500 leg treatments, and 1000 areolas,  and we’ve made our money back!”

I had always hoped that Cindy would have realized her dream because I wanted the opportunity to regale people with the tales of her auspicious beginnings doing hair removal on me in our tiny bathroom. I would sit on the toilet with my contact lenses out because I could not bare to witness the spectacle. Cindy would go warm up the wax in our microwave, and then forget it was there. Most likely, she had gotten distracted bidding on some crazy knick knack on eBay. She’d then return with lukewarm wax that did not lend itself well to being smoothly applied over the skin.

After putting some on me, she’d put some on herself (which also made her look eerily similar to Juan Valdez). As she straddled me on the toilet, I would grab onto the skin on the sides of her waist. She hated it when I did this and would always say, “Why do you always grab me in the absolutely worst area for any lady?”

Cindy would do a couple of simulated yankings before doing the actual one. This always unnerved me, but I kept my mouth shut, closed my eyes, and deferred to her expertise. 

CMR: “I am going to count to three. Okay?”

JM: “I guess.”

CMR: “Are you ready?”

JM: “Obviously.”

CMR: “You sure?”

JM: “Just do it already!”

CMR: “One . . .” [pulls the wax off]

JM: “Holy sh*t Cindy! I thought you said you were going to count to three?”

CMR: “I know, but it’s much easier if you don’t expect it.”

As I nursed my aching skin, I’d listen to Cindy attempt to pull off her own wax. You remember that scene in “Fight Club” where Ed Norton is throwing himself all over the office and beating himself up? If so, then you can visualize what Cindy looked like pulling off her own wax. Since my ears were better than my eyes in this situation, I vividly recall the sounds emanating from Cindy’s direction: “Oww,” “Ooo,” “F*ck,” and my personal favorite--“Why?!?”

After she completed the beauty regime, she would examine the hair pulled off by the wax. Then, she’d hold the strip to my eyes (since I was mostly blind) and proudly proclaim with a huge smile on her face: “Look! I just saved us $40 bucks!”