Aaahhh! The unofficial start of summer is finally here, and THAT, of course, means
“shorts weather.” Don’t worry all you fat “haters” and “body-shamers.” I wear only tasteful, Bermuda-length shorts, so as not to subject your vision to trauma. Yes, society’s unspoken rule against people like me exposing too much skin has been permanently etched into my psyche, even in spite of the fact that I am now significantly smaller than I’ve been in long time. So, it’s cool. I swear, you little bitches act like fat people wearing swimsuits, shorts, or tank tops is some kind of intentional physical assault on your eyeballs. Really, you don’t have to belabor that point for us on the Internet. I feel I use an appropriate degree of discretion. For instance, I don’t wear shorts when I run (yes, judgie-pants, I run). Nope, it’s black Capri-length running tights and being on the verge of heat stroke every summer for me.

Of course, for women, a distinct down side of wearing shorts, regardless of the kind of shape you’re in, is the cultural expectation that said shorts wearing is contingent upon shaving one’s legs fairly regularly. With that being said, the lovely warm holiday weekend weather, combined with my desire to wear shorts, necessitated addressing this issue posthaste. My thoughts while shaving my legs this morning:  “This is such a pain in the ass. Damn those prostitutes for starting this whole thing. It would be so awesome if I could get laser hair removal. I’d never have to do this again. Ugh! But that’s so expensive. I bet women that work in the porn industry get to write that shit off as a business expense.” Then I began to wonder how much hair I’ve shaved since I first started doing it. Would it measure in inches, feet, miles? I’ve been at it since I was nine. Yes, I was THAT young, and it was thanks to a humiliating interaction with my best friend at the time. “Eeew! You don’t shave your legs?” she squealed in disgust at the sight of my beastly legs. Thanks a lot, Penny. What I should’ve done was say, “No, I don’t. I’m NINE…and so are YOU!” What I actually did was race home and lock myself in the bathroom with a can of Barbasol and my dad’s razor. As you can imagine, these things were no bueno in the hands of a nine year-old girl. And razors were no fucking joke back in those days! You had to take an actual, little 2×1 razor blade and put in a tiny metal box on a stick! My mother ended up employing the, “I’m coming in there, whether you like it or not, so you better unlock the damn door!” strategy and found me covered, nearly head-to-toe, in shaving cream and my own blood. The bathroom looked like some kind of weird murder scene. All Mom had to say was, “Oh, Christ! Congratulations! Now you’re gonna have to be doing it for the rest of your life.” Sigh! Oh, hindsight!

So here I sit, cool and comfy on this warm day, in my tasteful Bermuda shorts – with my legs freshly shaven and smooth. I’m thinking of those poor prostitutes in their heavy turn-of-the-century woolen, albeit provocative, clothing. I’m sure they’d have given anything to run around all barelegged on a hot summer day.