Pop goes the shaver!

A fashionista knows it’s spring when she has to shave her legs. Winter legs can be hidden beneath boots, pants, tights. But in the spring, out comes the shorts, skirts and capris which means the legs must be hairless. Today was that day. Yesterday I was wearing a winter hat and today I am sweating with all the windows in my house wide open and fans running. Aaaah, life in the Midwest. But with the heat comes the bare legs. Around the house, who really cares if your legs are hairy or not. No one. And I’m pretty sure no one would care if you ever shaved your legs again. But women seem to care. I am such a woman. I have a Lady Sunbeam electric shaver. I have had this shaver since, gulp, college. Yup, that old. It has long lost its brand name on the shaver and the blades I’m sure are very dull. But it has served me well.. Until today. It is an electric shaver which means I have to plug the cord into an outlet. Which is the easy part. What happens next is a challenge. The cord is very frayed from use. But if you hold the cord JUST RIGHT, the shaver will do its duty. It’s more difficult to hold the cord in this special way when you have to reach around and do the back of your legs. But it is possible and I’ve done that for too many years than I want to admit. Until today. I get out Miss Lady Sunbeam, plug it in and jiggle the cord. Nothing. Hmmmm. I jiggle again. Again, nada. One more for the gipper and WALA I have humming. But it is short lived. As soon as I move the shaver, the humming stops. Dead. I do some more jiggling of the cord and see that there is a certain way that if I hold it I can get a spark to connect the obvious wires inside. Now my mind is thinking… what to do what to do what to do. I am married to an engineer!! He MUST have electrical tape!! I rush downstairs, with my hairy legs, and ask my man for his secret weapon. No, not duct tape, but instead electrical tape. He asks me what color I wanted. There are color choices in electrical tape? Why?? I say it doesn’t matter and he hands me green. I was expecting standard black but green will suffice. Back up to my bathroom. Plug the cord back in and try to hold the cord in the precise way so that it hums and I can tape it. Easier said than done. I then put the shaver in my lap and try taping and holding the cord attached to the shaver with both hands while it is humming. I see smoke. A dark dirty smelly smoke coming from my lap. Ohhhhh this can’t be good! Why is it smoking? Doesn’t electrical tape hold the parts together so it DOESN’T smoke? I quickly turn off the shaver. I put down the Miss Lady Sunbeam with the frayed cord now glowing with neon green tape and stare at it. Maybe it just needs to cool down a few seconds. 1, 2, 3… Grabbing the shaver at the count of 20 I turn it on and hope for the best. I hear humming!! Alright!! Life is good! I begin to shave my right leg. All is going well. My hairy leg is becoming smooth and hairless. Done with leg #1. Switch to the left leg. Things are going along smoothly when all of a sudden I hear a POP noise. Like a gun shot. I dropped the shaver, which is dead... again. I don’t want to touch it. What if I blew a fuse? Do I unplug the stupid thing? Or wait until I hear my husband’s footsteps coming into my bathroom demanding to know what happened. I wait. I don’t see smoke. I don’t see my husband. I don’t see fire. Just like the fireman tells you NOT to do in first grade, I pull the cord from the middle of the cord to unleash it from the outlet. I try turning on the light. Light works. Didn’t blow a fuse. Whew. Sadly I lay the deceased Miss Lady Sunbeam on my counter. But my left leg is still not hair free. It looks like a zebra. With some dark line stripes, some gone. This is definitely unacceptable. Frantically searching for a razor that I knew I saw in my vanity drawer 5 or 6 years ago, I found what I was looking for. A old fashion Bic hand held razor. Still in its wrapper. I haven’t shaved with a blade since, well, let’s just say a long long time. Do you use water first? Get the leg wet? That doesn’t seem right. Maybe use shaving cream? My husband has a beard, thus no shaving cream in the house. I remember seeing tv commercials with the lovely lady in the tub with her leg on the rim of the tub shaving. But who has time for a tub bath? That seemed ridiculous and a waste of my valuable time. May as well just shave el’naturale. And I did. I also knicked my leg in several spots. And am now walking around with daps of toilet paper stuck to my leg where I tried to stop the bleeding. I always put lotion on my legs after my Miss Lady Sunbeam shave so that my legs get remoisturized from the trama of being shaved. So I did that. Used some vanilla scented lotion. OUUCH!! Do NOT do this. Especially if you have fresh cuts in your legs. This burns like a son of a gun. I repeat, do not do this! I grabbed a towel, ran it under the faucet and soothed my newly shaved yet burning legs. But my legs are now hairless and sexy. I am ready to show off my skin to the rest of the world. Well, first I need to let the scabs form on the cuts and the red blochy burn marks from the lotion disappear. But good news. The weather is going to break tonight with a storm and the high is only 55 tomorrow. That’s slacks weather!! I’m good to go.