Slow. Down.

I come to you with a precautionary tale.  Never, under any circumstances, ever ever EVER rush through the awful process of waxing your upper lip.  Ever.  Let's travel back in time to about 7:02 Thursday evening....

Alex was engrossed in an episode of MythBusters, Sam was asleep, and Travis was at shuffleboard, so I had a solid half hour to myself.  Thinking ahead to the fact that there was no way I was going to want to take a shower after snuggling Alex to sleep, I figured I would use this time wisely and get cleaned up.  Once I got up to the bathroom, the face in the mirror needed a moustache removal like whoa.  So I got the little strips of horror out of the cuboard and starting warming them up with my sweaty palms of fear.

While I was warming The Strips Satan made up in my hands, I made the brilliant decision that I would do this as fast possible to minimize the pain time frame.  I've completed this task countless times, so why shouldn't I try to shave some seconds off my time, right?  Wrong.  This is not a job to be rushed.

Why you ask?  Why wouldn't you want to get the abomination that is waxing your lip over as quickly as possible?  Why?  I will tell you.  Because even though you think you have everything set correctly, and even though the first strip of agony goes well and it boosts your confidence for the second one, and even though you're starting to feel proud of yourself for forging through the pain, you will screw up.  And when you screw up, you will not realize the second wax strip is just slightly askew and is somehow stuck to the underside of your actual lip.  Not your upper lip, no no.  That sneaky little bitch of a corner is stuck to the delicate, plump, nerve-ending filled flesh of your actual lip...and a good side south of where the lip skin meets the face skin.  So when you are rushing through with all the confidence in the world and you don't realize where the stupid wax strip is stuck and you take two deep breaths and yank the strip off on the third deep breath?  ....  You will rip a big ol' chunk of your lip off.

And I will tell you:  the amazement of how many hairs are sticking follicle up on that little strip is dampened with a quickness when you spot a chunk of lip there too.