January 28th, 2019

By now, I figure we all all pretty much friends, right?  Whether we've ever actual met or not, you and I, we know things about each other.  Things not everyone on the planet knows, yes?  So that makes us, okay, if not friends, than at least friendly.  So I guess I won't be completely out of line if I ask you a question.  You don't have to answer if you don't want to, that's okay.  But, here we go, (deep breath), "Do you still cut yourself shaving?"

I know, I know, that is kind of personal.  But I was just wondering if I am the only one sporting a band-aid on the back of their ankle today?  It just seems to me that the word, "Band-aid" shows up on my grocery list with rather alarming regularity. And I guess I'm hoping that I am not the only one.

To be fair, one of the reasons that I buy so many boxes of bandages is that  I have band-aids stashed all over the house so that in the event that someone (me) requires one, that someone (me) is not then dripping blood all over the house on the way to fetch one which will then require me to go back and clean it up.

There are boxes of band-aids in both bathrooms, the linen closet, the kitchen and my purse.  I bring band-aids with me when we travel.  And, oh yes, there are band-aids in the glove box of my car. I am prepared if nothing else.

It is well documented how accident prone I am.  But I was thinking about it this morning when I was slapping yet another bandaid on myself immediately after shaving my legs, that I almost never see other women walking around with a bandaid peeking out from the back of the sneakers. Hmmmm.

It made me think way way way way back.  I believe I was around 13 years old.  I know I was living in St. Louis so it had to be middle school.

When the day finally came that I had to start shaving, it was quite honestly an unpleasant surprise.  Everyone else seemed overjoyed about it.  It just never dawned on me that it was something I should aspire to.  Suddenly having to wear a bra was bad enough frankly.  And stockings?  And monthly cramps?  What the hell is this crap? I was not happy about any of it.  And in that same window of time I was in a very polite stand-off with my grandmother on whether or not I was going to start wearing a girdle (seriously!)  She was adamantly for, I was equally strongly opposed.  I had enough going on with random, uninvited body changes to even have shaving on my radar.  But one day in the midst of all this my parents bestowed unto me a light blue Lady Schick electric razor in a fancy box.

I remember sighing and very politely thanking them. (I was raised well) but I also remember wanting to just throw it in the trash.  More unwanted changes and responsibilities dang it.  But, as I was a very obedient child, instead of tossing it out, I starred at it awhile, took it out of the box, read the instruction manual and tried it out.  A short time later, my father found me rummaging in the bathroom drawers.  He asked what I was looking for.  "A bandaid" I replied.  "What for?"  "I cut myself shaving".  "With an electric razor?"  he goggled.  "Yup" I answered, found the bandaid and carefully applied it.  This time my poor beleagured father sighed.

It turned out, that the reason they bought me an electric razor was so that I wouldn't cut myself.  Yes, folks, I managed to cut myself shaving with an electric razor. And it wasn't the last time either.  I am gifted.

So life continued on and eventually I moved on to using regular ordinary razor.  They come, multiples in a package, in pretty colours, I'm not sure but they might be made my Gillette.   And I'm still occasionally cutting myself while shaving.  Not sure why it happens, I just know that it happens.  And I assumed that it happened to everyone but then I realized that I never see Tim wearing a bandaid on his face!  Which led my brain farther down that path and I don't see women wearing bandaids above their sandals, or behind their knees or over their ankles.......
Nope. Just me. Hmmmm.  

Oh well, like I said, you don't have to answer. But if you do, I would truly be curious to know.  How many of you still, occasionally cut yourselves shaving?  Is it really just me?