I'm not sure when I first heard the word, "manscaping", but I loved it. Usually, I hate made up words. In meetings at work I'd cringe when the words "imagineering" and "probletunity" were volleyed around. Gross. But, manscaping I loved. You instantly knew what it meant and it just fit.
Before manscaping, there was no manscaping. What I mean is guys just did not care about the hair growing all over their bodies. In fact, it was not culturally acceptable to look like a man-child. It was unnatural. In fact, we loved hair. Hairy chests were cool and hairy faces adorned with Magnum P.I. mustaches were chick magnets. And then they weren't. All of a sudden, we had to look like 12 year old boys. Hairless washboard abs were the thing. Back and shoulder hair repulsed women. For hairy guys, the time allotted for grooming just got exponentially longer. That's a bummer because guys are busy people!
One evening I was watching Unsolved Mysteries on the sofa, one hand down the front of my pants Al Bundy style. I was bored, the kids were in bed asleep, but I wasn't really tired, or interested in what was on TV, a bad recipe for guys that need to keep busy. (One time such as this, I found a VO5 Hot Oil hair treatment in junk drawer. Let's just say the vile spent longer in the microwave than it should and basically became VO5 french fry oil. I gave myself third degree burns on the crown of my head. I still have a bald spot there.) As the tips of my fingers reached the pleasure dome, I considered the fact that my general man business was, in fact, headed toward a full Chewbacca. Suddenly it occurred to me that my pubic man stuff was like ivy covering a stately home. It was the metaphor I needed. I got up. It was time to trim that jungle up. So...on to the bathroom.
Once I securely locked the door, I found my tools. A pair of scissors and a trash can were all I figured I would need. I dropped trou, wedged the trash can between my knees and started going at it. Snip, snip. Hair rained into the waste basket. I employed the twirl and snip method as I spun tuffs of hair in my fingers and cut them off at the correct length. My first ever manscaping activity was sailing along brilliantly. Why did I wait so long? I realized pretty quickly that the general area of my man stuff was going to be considerably cooler and lighter. That's a plus. The other advantage I discovered was that when you remove the ivy from your stately Victorian home, it looks a little larger. In fact, I'd say a couple of rooms larger. Why did I wait so long? I was beginning to feel like a new man. Sexier. More confident. In fact, I instantly decided I need some new, cool underwear to match the new me.
It stands to reason that a sharp instrument near your franks and beans would automatically mean careful, slow movements. And I was being extremely cautious, or so I thought. But all it takes is one small mistake for manscaping activity to go south. South in a big way. I had moved down to the satchel area, ridding myself of my disgusting man hair-cicles. Somehow, and I'm still fuzzy on this, during one of my snips, I clipped my sack. I'm pretty sure my miscalculation involved a sudden sneeze or a hiccup or something. Frankly, I don't remember. What I do remember was the blood.
Apparently the scrotum bleeds like hell when it's clipped with a sharp object. Dark red blood, almost maroon in color, was running out of the wound like a river. The blood was dripping to the floor and I was frozen. I knew I had just barely clipped the skin down there, but you would have thought I'd been attacked by Freddie Krueger. I grabbed Kleenex after Kleenex trying to stop the bleeding. Nothing was working. Direct Pressure. Indirect Pressure. Peer Pressure. The bleeding wouldn't stop. I fought this battle for a good 30 minutes, maybe more. Crap! Would I have to go the Emergency Room? I did not want to do this. I was trying to come up with a lie I could tell the medical staff that wouldn't seem so bad. I had nothing. I started to realize I might need a stitch or two. Dammit!
Finally, after half a box of tissue and a few prayers, the bleeding seemed to stop. Thank God!
I was exhausted. I cleaned up the bathroom and went to bed. Oh yeah, I finally got to pull up my pants. Manscaping is not for sissies.
When I woke up the next morning and drug myself to the bathroom to shower and get ready for work, I noticed I had bled during the night. I bled a decent amount, but the bleeding had stopped so I wasn't worried. But I did need to clean off the blood and wash the boys. They were still angry with me from last night. They looked sad and confused. Fair enough.
I stood under the shower and gently cleaned up my man area. I was going slowly, taking my time, examining the damage. The wound was small, a clean slice. Unfortunately, as I was cleaning up, I started to bleed again. Oh my God, I did not have time to fight this battle again. Fortunately, the bleeding stopped quickly.
As I was dressing, I decided that I needed to somehow dress my wound in case walking around work caused the bleeding to return. You ever try to put a band-aid on your ball sack? It doesn't work. The satchel is an ever changing organ. It's a shapeshifter. Sometimes it's loose and free swinging like a sack of Halloween candy, other times drawn up and tight like grandma's coin purse. Bandaging a man sack is just not possible. You can't wrap your balls in gauze either. I tried. The tape doesn't hold right.
Bam! A brilliant idea hit me. I'd use one of my wife's maxi pads! I'd line my boxer briefs with a pad and I'd be protected all day. I'd seen the commercials on TV; those pads hold a lot of blue liquid that people in the commercials pour on those cottony, little hourglass shaped panty beds.
I carefully, peeled the paper off the pad and gently placed it in my briefs. When I pulled up my underwear, the pad basically hit at my belly button. Well, I misjudged that one. I peeled it off, crumpled it up and threw it away. I peeled a second one and recalculated it's placement on my man-panties. When I pulled up my underwear this time, the end of the pad seemed to ride way up my back! Too high. Dang this is not easy. Finally, on the third try, when I pulled up my pants, my boys nestled themselves on top their cottony mattress. Houston, The Eagle has landed!
It never occurred to me to use the same pad and reposition it until I had it in just the right place. I also had to admit that using these pad things on a regular basis would be a total pain in the ass. I had a newfound empathy for women who had to deal with such things on a regular basis. Cheers to you ladies, beers on me.
You may think this would be the end of my sad tale. The pad did it's job and my body healed itself and all was well. I learned a tough manscaping lesson. Go Real Slow! Trust me, I never made this mistake ever again.
But, there was one more observation I made on the day I "padded-up". Once I got to work that morning, things were quiet as usual. I generally get to work early before the hustle and bustle of people milling around the building and my time setback wrestling with that damn maxipad had, fortunately, not set me back too much.
As I walked down the quiet corridor, I heard a distinct "kush, kush, kush"! What the Hell? With every step I took, the friction between the pad and my body made an audible sound. Faint, yes, but I definitely heard it. I don't think I have Spidey senses, or even have particularly great hearing to be honest. Perhaps the vibrations were traveling through my body and amplifying the sound, but in a way only my ears could detect. Kush, Kush, Kush. With every step a kush. I shook my head in disbelief. This is crazy? How does this noise exist and not get noticed? Was the sound being produced by my legs or my man parts? Had to be the later, right? If not, everyone would hear when it was "that time of month" for females everywhere.
Once the building contained the busy sounds of people and paperwork, I didn't hear a thing. But the sound was definitely audible in a quiet place; I was sure of it. It wasn't my imagination, I swear.
Manscaping has come a long way in the last 15 years or so. Trimming, waxing, shaving, and the general trend of looking like a hairless cat has evolved. All the dudes in Magic Mike are hairless. Wait, I've never seen the movie but I just Googled "Magic Mike" images and they are bald bodies for sure. Metrosexuals are hip and with the exception of the crazy beard trend, I'm betting hair on other body parts is considered wrong. I doubt the lengthy beard trend would translate well to the man bag. It's funny. Little boys spend a great deal of their youth yearning for a little man hair, and then when we get it, we have to get rid of it.
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