Sunday, September 28, 2008

A boy, a Bic razor and a vision: No eyebrows!


I did a lot of stupid things as a kid for no real reason other than to get a laugh.  It was on one such occasion that I shaved my eyebrows completely off.  

Much has been said of that fateful day.  The story has become more myth than truth.  In fact, over the years the story has been mytholized, trivialized, exaggeratized and legendaryized.  All that remains are three tidbits of truth: a boy, a razor and the backseat of a Suburban.  

I was all of 14 years old and the hairs on my chin had just started hitting puberty.  They had begun to show their timid heads and my mom had purchased me a couple of Bic razors to take care of business.  I found that I now owned a small collection of all of Bic's products: both pens and razors!  Armed with a can of Arm and Hammer shaving cream, I was ready to become a man.  

I know what your thinking, and of course, real men do not shave off their eyebrows.  I didn't say I was a man, I just said that I was ready to become a man.  There was just one juvinile episode of tomfoolery that needed to be completed and that was the shaving of the eyebrows.

I had planned and coordinated my moves for weeks.  We would be traveling south to Moab as a scout troop that summer and it would not take the entire trip to whittle the old chin eye straps.  We gathered, said a prayer for our safety (on the trip, not from my parents when I got home) and I hopped in the tail end of that Mormon-obile.  

My friends knew exactly what I was up to and they huddled around me like I was passing out candy cigarettes.  I pulled out my trusty Bic, fresh from the plastic wrap and stared at it's gleaming blade.  The driver, oblivious to my malarky, drove like the wind to our destination.  I, on the other hand, had not considered the need for any sort of lubricating cream to soften the scraping of the cutlass against my tender, tender skin.  Without hesitation, I went forward with my plan of attack anyway.

My grossed out, circle posse began groaning and squealing as small chunks of fur fell from my feathered brow into a plastic ziplock bag.  Unable to bring the vehicle to a stop on a busy section of I-15, our leader started screaming and begging me to stop from the front seat of the car.  He was absolutely stupefied that something so inanely outlandish could be taking place in the back seat of his burban.  There was nothing he could do, however, and the wads of brown shag continued to fall into their plastic resting place.

It did not take long to realize that without a creaming agent I would be mixing blood and brow.  Small sores began to appear above my brow and I felt that I was replaying a portion of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" to near perfection.  Within ten minutes, I was hairless, smooth and a bit bloody.  My friends were in hysterics, laughing aloud as I sat with a smile on my face, completely content and imperious with my bag of brow bristle.

I know what you are thinking - What a lavish and dazzling end to that story - no doubt.  And yep, you would be correct; if I never had to return to the loving arms of a mother and father, which were of course, mortified and embarrassed.  And of course, their mortification and embarrassment would have normally faded soon enough, most likely after I passed the sacrament that first week back.  But as luck would have it and to my horror, there was something I had not considered when I packed that new yellow Bic into my sack that day: We were getting our family pictures taken in less than two weeks!  Oops.

I had long bangs back in 1990.  They were almost long enough to cover where my eyebrows should have been, but not quite.  I recall my father just shaking his head in frustration as the photographer moved me around to conceal my chagrining forehead.  He tried everything from moving my head in different angles to moving me completely out of the picture.  Alas, the photos were flashed and our family portrait forever frozen in time.  I was very lucky as a 6 year old Jordan made the most adorable pose you have ever seen and for the majority of people that looked at the picture, that was the first thing they noticed.  If you look just a little closer, however, you will see a boy with a missing eyebrow or two.  

This story now lives on in Yospe infamy.  It is stuck on the walls of our wall(s) of shame, forever captured by a photograph.  Fortunately my eyebrows have grown back.  Unfortunately, it is true what they say: Once you shave a spot, the hair will grow back longer and thicker.  That is why you should never shave the insides of your nose.

Also, please add this to my list of things I probably should have never blogged about but did anyway.

7 comments:

Ike said...

Who ended up with the ziplock full of eyebrow?

Also, I really doubt you had seen the movie "The Wall" when you were only 14.

But I remember this story well, and I don't think I'd be too shocked if you did it again.

Cheeseboy said...

Yes, Ike I am sure that I hadn't seen The Wall then. Reliving the event in my head now reminded me of the Wall.

Not sure what happened to the ziplock full of eyebrow. I think we might have burned the remains and put the ashes in a Halloween snowglobe.

Clark said...

I would like to see the photo. I don't ever remember taking any of you without eyebrows. Mom and I were not embarassed. At that time in your life you were trying to avoid ever being seen with "the family". So we thought it was funny and glad it wasn't a tattoo or something that would not go away over time. By the way, shaving off your eyebrows makes them come in really bushy. Ask Warren Buffet.
Dad

Cheeseboy said...

Dad, it is the photo in the office where Jordan has a suit on and his head is tilted back. I think I might have been wearing a red shirt and a bolo tie?! Ugh.

I am glad you weren't embarrassed of me though.

Green River High School said...

So... you know that by sharing this story we NEED to see the family picture. Thanks for the laughs, Abe.

Lori said...

I'll be waiting for the photo on this post! Isn't it funny how parents seem to always forget what "really" happened...

Cheeseboy said...

Tyler &/or Lindsay - Welcome to my blog!!! Thanks for commenting. Please feel free to comment/visit anytime and encourage Brent or Melanie to do the same. (They still never have.)

I will try and post the picture next Sunday when I go and visit the parents. I can scan it in then.