Pit Peeve

At times mom would do well to follow her own advice of “How will you know you don’t like it unless you try it?” that she freely dispenses to her children.

As she lay back on the table at Lakme Beauty Salon and waited for the attendant to pour hot wax on her arm, mom wondered if she should expand the service to include her underarm region also.

In a departure from tradition, when she usually forgets to pack her toothbrush on a trip, mom had left her razor behind, and the weather in Chennai demanded that she occasionally air her armpits to catch the sea breeze.

After a quick round of mental math and deducing that a half-hour of pampering in India would cost her less than a bag of dog food back home, mom asked the attendant to do the honors.

The woman gathered the depilatory strips and smiled genially at mom.

“North Indian, madam?” she asked.

“Illai,” replied mom bemused. “South Indian daan.”

The woman proceeded to wax her arm rather vigorously, causing mom to wonder if she should modify her response to receive gentler handling.

“Oh, what happened here, madam?” the woman paused, holding up mom’s fleshy arm. “Why is it swollen?”

“Er … it’s not swollen, that’s how it is,” said mom, suddenly conscious of the dewlap jiggling under her arms.

The woman stretched mom’s left hand over her head. A discreet, cursory sniff of her armpit convinced mom to set trepidation aside and submit to the depilation.

Rrrrrrripppp! The first wave of agony almost knocked her senseless. Through a haze of pain she heard the attendant ask from very far away, “Has it been awhile, madam?”

“More like never,” gasped mom, smarting from the tears and bracing herself for the subsequent shock. Every excruciating rip thereafter made her childhood encounters with her maid, Chellamma, and the lice comb far more pleasurable.

“You’re wearing perfume no, madam?” the woman suddenly asked, pausing with the bread knife dripping with wax suspended in midair.

“You mean deodorant?” frowned mom.

“You should never wear perfume or lotion before waxing,” continued the woman. “See, that’s why the hair isn’t sticking to the strip,” she said, proceeding to rewax spots she had previously missed.

“Actually, I’m not wearing perfume. It’s deodorant,” explained mom weakly. “You see …”

“Same thing only,” said the woman cutting her off. “Next time, remember, no perfume.”

After what seemed like hours, the waxing session reached a merciful end. Barely able to lower her arms from the pain, mom struggled into her clothes and collected her purse and dupatta from the floor.

“What else, madam?” persisted the woman. “Facial? … Threading? … You don’t color your hair aa?”

Too weak to respond, mom merely nodded and made her way to the cash register, mindful of her delicate skin breaking into angry pustules that threatened to explode with a single cough.

The woman fired a salvo at the door.

“Are you Brahmin?” she wanted to know.