Petite Confessions by Vicki Lesage (chrysanthemum read aloud TXT) 📕

Tank tops are kind of my thing. They show off my toned arms, one of the few features worth showing off (because, hello, you can’t SEE how funny I am).

With sleeveless shirts, though, comes a responsibility to keep those pits shaved. Hence, the reason I opted for pricey laser hair removal. And why not throw in the bikini area while we’re shooting laser beams at sensitive bits?

I had located a swanky place off the Champs Elysées that would happily take my euros in exchange for permanently burning hair off my body.

At the consultation, the doctor compared the color of my hair (relatively dark) to the color of my skin (relatively see-through) and determined I was a good candidate for the treatment. She wrote a prescription for topical anesthetic and told me to bring the numbing cream and my freshly-shaved goods to the next appointment.

At this next appointment, a quick-talking mademoiselle led me to the Special Room Where They Rub You Down With Anesthetic Cream.

“Blah blah le blah?” she asked.

“Pardon?” I eloquently replied. I was still working on my French and had missed class the day they taught laser hair removal lingo.

“Ah, you speak English. Please take off zee clothes.”

Let the fun begin. I obliged, leaving only my bra between me and zees total stranger.

“I put cream, to show you how, then you do zee rest yourself, yeah?”

Got it.

“You want me to do your underlegs?” she asked.

What the flip was an underleg? I assumed it was a bad translation of “part of my body next to my hoo-hah” so I replied, “Oh, I’ll do that myself.” I would let her demonstrate on my armpits and then I’d do my “underlegs” on my own time.

Swipe. Pause. Swoosh.

Before I knew what had happened, she’d rubbed anesthetic cream down one side of my lady bits and back up the other.

“You see how it’s done? Now you do underlegs.”

The heck? I’d thought she was going to do my underarms and… oh. Ohhhhhhh. I got it now. “Underlegs” had been a poor translation of “underarms.” I’d unwittingly asked her to rub down my previously-private parts, leaving the pits for myself.

Naked, shaken from the recent fondling, and still generally confused, I somehow managed to spread the cream on my underarms as she watched.

“Now we wrap you in plastic.”

This just got better and better. She bandaged a roll of saran wrap around each shoulder and armpit, then covered my bikini area, creating a chic transparent diaper.

“This keeps the cream moist,” she said.

Gag, cough, blerk… She didn’t know the word for “underarm” but she knew everyone’s least favorite word, “moist”?

“Get dressed and wait in zee waiting room until you are called.”

Excusez-moi, WHAT? I had to go in public like this?

I trudged down the hall, armpits and butt crack squeaking under my clothes, embarrassed to enter the waiting room looking (and sounding) like this.

I needn’t have worried.

The room full of mummies barely looked up from their tattered copies of Vogue, embarrassed enough by their own saran-wrapped faces, necks, arms, and legs. We waited in mutual silence as if saying, “I won’t look at what you’re having lasered off if you won’t look at mine. Weirdo.”

Five sessions later, I was hair (and plastic wrap) free. If only they could laser off the embarrassment.