I’ve just come
from a rather gruesome shower which culminated in me proving to be somewhat of
a sissy. In fact, I’ve never shed so much blood since the Spontaneous Nosebleed
of ‘09 nor acted so childish since, well, I was a child. Now to warn any of a
queasy or non-sanguinary nature, I will indeed be spending this entire essay
talking about what turned into a rather gory incident, so if you’re put off by
that, simply close this and move on with your life. For the rest of you, don’t
worry too much. I won’t be savagely engrossed in grotesque details, but nor
will I gloss over some of the more intense moments.
I was cleansing myself in my usual daily routine. Hair and body were washed and rinsed, and I had just used the last of my Pantene Pro-V Frizzy-to-Smooth conditioner. With the conditioner rinsed out of my now silky hair, I was enjoying the warmth of the shower and the ambiance of the steam-filled room when I glanced down and realized I hadn’t shaved my legs in over a week. I stared at them some more and tried to think of at least four reasonable alternatives to ridding my legs of the hair without shaving them right now. 1. Wax. I could wax them. There was a coupon in the latest mailer that gave me a free area wax with the purchase of an equal or greater area. I could do a leg and get an armpit for free! 2. I could wear long pants and hope nobody ever noticed. 3. I could put cream on my legs and see if cats licking it off would really take the hair with it. 4. . . . 4. . . . 4. . . . Dangit.
I sighed and looked around for the shave cream which was hiding rudely in the first corner I checked but didn’t see and therefore spent two minutes fruitlessly poking my nose in the other corners before seeing it where it belonged. I lathered up and half-heartedly enjoyed the scent of Skintimate’s shave gel. Not one of the fruity ones, just plain and simple Soothing Escape. I grabbed the razor off one of the shower shelves and started in on my right leg. Ankle to knee. Ankle to knee. I’ve no idea how other people shave their legs but my routine is very methodical and exactly the same every time. I start in the front just to the lateral side of my shin and shave the outside. Then I cross over to about three inches medial of the shin line and shave the inside. Lastly I shave the small band dead center on the front of my leg. Usually this prevents me from missing anything, but a once-over for strays never hurts.
Now, for the record, the last time I legitimately cut myself shaving was when I was fourteen, and I ended up gashing into that tricky area around the back side of the ankle. Since then a small nick near either the knee or the ankle has not been unheard of every six to eight months. Notwithstanding so peaceful a history handling blades, I proved today that I am not to be trifled with when haste and inattention are at hand!
I had shaved ninety percent of my right leg, remembering to stretch the ankle and knee areas appropriately to avoid undue inflictions. Lateral, medial, center. Just the center left. I rinsed the lather out of the blades and reached down and set the razor at the base of my shin. Just as I’ve done countless times for the last eleven years, I drew the razor straight up to my knee and watched the foam collapse beneath the swiftly sliding steel. Suddenly something was very, very, very wrong. My eyes were fixed on the middle of my shin where a patch of my leg was quite simply gone.
I just stared. This was unprecedented. What does one do? I stared. My olive toned skin was smooth and hairfree up to very nearly the dead center of my leg. Immediately inside my shin a patch had appeared. It measured approximately three inches in length and one and a half inches in width. The skin was just gone. Where it had been was momentarily white then tiny specks of red appeared. It looked as though someone had fired the tiniest buckshot charge in the world into my leg.
“I think,” I said quite loudly, “I think I’ve cut myself.” My dear Brian was not far off and poked his head in when he heard me.
I was cleansing myself in my usual daily routine. Hair and body were washed and rinsed, and I had just used the last of my Pantene Pro-V Frizzy-to-Smooth conditioner. With the conditioner rinsed out of my now silky hair, I was enjoying the warmth of the shower and the ambiance of the steam-filled room when I glanced down and realized I hadn’t shaved my legs in over a week. I stared at them some more and tried to think of at least four reasonable alternatives to ridding my legs of the hair without shaving them right now. 1. Wax. I could wax them. There was a coupon in the latest mailer that gave me a free area wax with the purchase of an equal or greater area. I could do a leg and get an armpit for free! 2. I could wear long pants and hope nobody ever noticed. 3. I could put cream on my legs and see if cats licking it off would really take the hair with it. 4. . . . 4. . . . 4. . . . Dangit.
I sighed and looked around for the shave cream which was hiding rudely in the first corner I checked but didn’t see and therefore spent two minutes fruitlessly poking my nose in the other corners before seeing it where it belonged. I lathered up and half-heartedly enjoyed the scent of Skintimate’s shave gel. Not one of the fruity ones, just plain and simple Soothing Escape. I grabbed the razor off one of the shower shelves and started in on my right leg. Ankle to knee. Ankle to knee. I’ve no idea how other people shave their legs but my routine is very methodical and exactly the same every time. I start in the front just to the lateral side of my shin and shave the outside. Then I cross over to about three inches medial of the shin line and shave the inside. Lastly I shave the small band dead center on the front of my leg. Usually this prevents me from missing anything, but a once-over for strays never hurts.
Now, for the record, the last time I legitimately cut myself shaving was when I was fourteen, and I ended up gashing into that tricky area around the back side of the ankle. Since then a small nick near either the knee or the ankle has not been unheard of every six to eight months. Notwithstanding so peaceful a history handling blades, I proved today that I am not to be trifled with when haste and inattention are at hand!
I had shaved ninety percent of my right leg, remembering to stretch the ankle and knee areas appropriately to avoid undue inflictions. Lateral, medial, center. Just the center left. I rinsed the lather out of the blades and reached down and set the razor at the base of my shin. Just as I’ve done countless times for the last eleven years, I drew the razor straight up to my knee and watched the foam collapse beneath the swiftly sliding steel. Suddenly something was very, very, very wrong. My eyes were fixed on the middle of my shin where a patch of my leg was quite simply gone.
I just stared. This was unprecedented. What does one do? I stared. My olive toned skin was smooth and hairfree up to very nearly the dead center of my leg. Immediately inside my shin a patch had appeared. It measured approximately three inches in length and one and a half inches in width. The skin was just gone. Where it had been was momentarily white then tiny specks of red appeared. It looked as though someone had fired the tiniest buckshot charge in the world into my leg.
“I think,” I said quite loudly, “I think I’ve cut myself.” My dear Brian was not far off and poked his head in when he heard me.
“Sweetheart,
why?”
That snapped me
out of it. “It’s not as though I did it on purpose!” I shook the foam
out of the razor and looked grumpily down at my leg. There was still a swath of
leg left to be shaved and right next to it I was now bleeding profusely. Brian
grabbed the razor out of my hand and said, “Sweetheart, your skin is in here.”
I admit I didn’t really hear him. I grabbed the spare razor and finished off the last band of shaving. At the very least I was not going to be half done. Then it started hurting. Then it started hurting a lot. The entire patch was bleeding very steadily and all the blood was running down the inside of my leg and seeping across the floor of the tub. Any blood-and-gore movie maker would have paid handsomely for the shot. I would have paid just as much for my skin to instantly regrow.
So much for the gruesome shower part and now for the bit in which I am a complete sissy.
Brian set about gathering things to play doctor for me. I wanted it to stop bleeding and even more to stop hurting. The whole area was throbbing by now, and my leg was literally getting a blood bath. Our shower head detaches, and I pulled it down and quickly swished it over the front of my leg. The pain was sharp and intense, and I whined. One swish didn’t do much. I angled the head around so that I could rinse all the blood off without getting any water on the wound. I was almost proud of myself until I realized that as soon as I rinsed off the existing blood more just rushed in. I frantically swished several times above and below the wound and once very gingerly and quickly over the patch itself. I thought I had conquered and shut off the water. I stepped out on the bath rug and immediately hopped back in. There was blood everywhere. Everywhere. I finally just stood pouting in the shower with blood running freely all over the place.
Brian had assembled a very motherly kit of wound attendance items. Gauze, fine. Large Band-Aid, I approve. Triple anti-biotic ointment, very nice. Hydrogen peroxide: “No.” I said loudly and with what I believed to be an air of compelling finality. “No hydrogen peroxide.” Brian stared at me.
I admit I didn’t really hear him. I grabbed the spare razor and finished off the last band of shaving. At the very least I was not going to be half done. Then it started hurting. Then it started hurting a lot. The entire patch was bleeding very steadily and all the blood was running down the inside of my leg and seeping across the floor of the tub. Any blood-and-gore movie maker would have paid handsomely for the shot. I would have paid just as much for my skin to instantly regrow.
So much for the gruesome shower part and now for the bit in which I am a complete sissy.
Brian set about gathering things to play doctor for me. I wanted it to stop bleeding and even more to stop hurting. The whole area was throbbing by now, and my leg was literally getting a blood bath. Our shower head detaches, and I pulled it down and quickly swished it over the front of my leg. The pain was sharp and intense, and I whined. One swish didn’t do much. I angled the head around so that I could rinse all the blood off without getting any water on the wound. I was almost proud of myself until I realized that as soon as I rinsed off the existing blood more just rushed in. I frantically swished several times above and below the wound and once very gingerly and quickly over the patch itself. I thought I had conquered and shut off the water. I stepped out on the bath rug and immediately hopped back in. There was blood everywhere. Everywhere. I finally just stood pouting in the shower with blood running freely all over the place.
Brian had assembled a very motherly kit of wound attendance items. Gauze, fine. Large Band-Aid, I approve. Triple anti-biotic ointment, very nice. Hydrogen peroxide: “No.” I said loudly and with what I believed to be an air of compelling finality. “No hydrogen peroxide.” Brian stared at me.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“NO.”
“Yes.”
“It hurts.”
“It will get infected if you don’t.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Yes, it will.”
“I was in the shower!”
“Did you wash it with soap?”
“It was under the shave cream!”
“Shave cream doesn’t clean stuff!”
“Well I cleaned it first and then put the shave cream on!”
“You still need to keep it from getting infected.”
“It won’t get infected.”
“If it gets infected it will hurt a hundred times more.”
“It won’t get infected.”
“Put hydrogen peroxide on it. It’s not going to hurt that much.”
“Yes, it will.”
“No, it won’t. Put it on.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You put it on yourself then.”
“No.”
I was outraged.
If I said no then
that was final. No it was and No it would ever remain until I said yes. If I
said no hydrogen peroxide then by heaven and earth no hydrogen peroxide would
there be!
Apparently,
nobody ever told that to Brian.
“You do it or I
will.”
“No.”
Brian stood with a gauze pad in one hand and the terrible bottle in the other. I stood with my arms folded in the shower trying to look immovable. Brian stepped forward. I looked down at my leg. I had managed to wrap a towel around my shoulders but that was the full extent to my wardrobe. I was furthermore bleeding unstoppably, and Brian was between me and the door menacingly wielding the gallon-sized jug of hydrogen peroxide. I stood contemplating an escape plan when Brian promptly executed a sneak attack. I hardly had time to yelp. He dumped the peroxide liberally over the area while I whimpered unnecessarily. It didn’t hurt that bad, but don’t tell Brian.
I fully expected the trauma of being drowned in hydrogen peroxide to effectively cauterize the blood flow but no such luck. After two seconds’ respite, the blood resumed its mass exodus from my lower leg. Brian stared at the patch for a second and said, “I don’t think the band-aid will work.” He pulled out a fresh piece of gauze (the first one being used in the aftermath of the hydrogen peroxide attack), folded it in half and pressed it over the skinless patch. I held it in place while he dried off the rest of my leg. Then he tried to spread some ointment on the wound, but the blood filled the space so quickly that he couldn’t get it off his finger and reliably onto the leg. He ended up spreading it over the gauze pad and then bandaging the gauze to my leg.
Brian sweetly washed the remaining blood off my foot with a washcloth and helped me out of the shower. He hugged me and asked me if I was ok, and when I confirmed that I was not in need of hospitalization, he promptly kissed me on the head and went back to reading about Greek philosophers. I toweled off and gingerly ran my hand over the sore area. As far as I could tell, at least, I wasn’t bleeding through the bandage. Phew. I was extra attentive as I pulled on clean clothes. My right leg made it in just fine, and I was just breathing a sigh of relief as I pulled my left leg through. Then I looked again.
I didn’t shave my left leg.
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