I Shaved My Legs For This? And Other War Stories Of A Growing Girl....

I have one and I'll bet you do too. Okay, maybe I wasn't the brightest crayon in the box at age 13, but I thought I was close to being a genius (outside of school, naturally). I'm talking about battle scars from being a regular kid when you were still the appropriate age. Scars that you yourself caused by your own hand, that have never disappeared the way scars are supposed to. Yes, I'm talking about that most highly anticipated moment in a young teenage girl's life... shaving her legs for the very first time. My mother told me I was far too young to shave and so, like with everything else she ever told me not to do, I did it. I did it with so much enthusiasm I nearly bled to death.

Alright, perhaps I made a bad decision to experience this passage-of-rites while staying at my grandparents house one summer. I didn't really have any friends there, so I didn't have the guidance of another 13 year old idiot genius. I locked myself in their bathroom and used my grandfather's double-edged Gillette razor, which you might consider my big mistake but you'd be wrong. (Papa had fought in 2 world wars and was very frugal, which never entered my mind. It was probably the same blade he used in the trenches of France.) My big mistake was in believing I was a genius and could damn well shave my legs if I wanted to, without bloodshed. I managed to shave a pretty thick piece of skin off my shin, approximately 1/2" in length. Wow, I sure did feel like a freaking genius at that moment, let me tell you. However, as proof of my folly, I still have the scar with me, even after 44 years. I still remember the dizzy feeling I got from looking at the chunk of skin I had just removed from my shin. Yes, that was some moment.

I also had my first period that Summer, which might or might not have catapulted me into making that ill fated shaving decision. I mean, my grandfather didn't use feminine pads (aka: Kotex) but neither did my grandmother. Which meant my grandmother who had learned to be even more frugal than she was during the Depression, during the World War II years, would make me some nice home made pads and pin them to my little girl panties. Honestly, you can't make this stuff up. After my mother (The Brown Recluse, aka: TBR) had carefully versed me about what to expect (which translates to: "You're going to bleed like a stuck pig... down there. It's called The Curse and you're going to feel like shit while it lasts... roughly 40 years. Get used to it.") Nice pep talk about the joys of becoming a woman, huh?

To tell you the truth, my father's mother wasn't much better, as she called it The Curse too and insisted on making those ridiculously humiliating pads for me from old rags. I had to go out in public in those things, which kept me mortified (24-7) that people would see the leakage before I had the sense to feel it. I have little doubt that this is perhaps how the lovely phrase *on the rag* was started. It sure as hell sounds right to me anyway. My grandmother's explanation was a total cop out. She told me that it had been so long since she'd had a period, she couldn't remember what it was like. Bullshit! Baloney! Thanks for that little insight Mimi. I'm the same age she was and I remember it all, uncensored. So, those scars are hidden but still there, tucked away with other most-humiliating-moments-of-my-young-life. (Don't expect me to spill all the beans at once.) Still, I'd rather be a girl than sit around scratching my balls cahones all the time, right?

I can honestly tell you that I did not pass my horrid experiences on to my daughter. I'm sure she has demons of her own though... If so........ let me just say "Sorry Daughter. But, if I could survive what I did, I have no doubts that you will survive your charmed life as well." It's not easy being a bitch woman, you know.