Little miss big mouth

I am having trouble getting myself out of vacation mode. I've fallen out of the blogging groove, and discovered that when you're out of the groove you don't just naturally stumble across interesting things to blog about. In fact, sometimes subjects smack you right in the head and you still don't notice. In hindsight, there have been a number of funny little tidbits I could have shared these past few weeks. Here's one of them.

I have been noticing that the loss of chest hair from radiation is actually pretty significant. I don't know know if I just haven't noticed before, or if hair has continued to fall out even after radiation ended. But basically, I have a D shaped semi-bald spot in the middle of my otherwise long (and pretty thick) chest hair. I'm not sure how noticeable it really is, but I notice - particularly when I step out of the shower right in front of the big bathroom mirror.

So anyway, this Saturday afternoon when I stepped out of the shower, I decided that if I trimmed the long, think chest hairs a bit, the bald spot wouldn't be so apparent. I grabbed the electric hair trimmer, adjusted it to what I thought was a suitable length, and got busy.

It took me about 3 passes with the trimmer to realize the length I chose was not so suitable. I had intended to go from "thick wool", to "light-weight cashmere". Unfortunately the setting I picked was more like "nearly naked". In a foolish attempt to avoid ending up with a completely bare chest, I decided I would sort of trim in a haphazard, unsystematic way - believing naively that this technique would just thin it out a bit.

I stood and looked at my handi-work and thought it actually looked okay. But I realized the hairs on my stomach were now considerably longer and darker than the hairs on my chest. I decided I had no choice but to continue down to my waste-line. It was about this time that Anna knocked on the bathroom door and told me dinner was ready. I said I would be right there. She heard the trimmer grinding away and asked what I was doing. I said I was shaving. I finished up as quickly as I could, got dressed, and went down to dinner.

So, we were about halfway through dinner, with Mathilde's Dad as our dinner guest, when Anna took advantage of a moment of silence to ask, "Daddy, why were you standing in the bathroom, naked, shaving your belly?" The little shit had been looking through the keyhole!

Mathilde cackled with laughter and looked at me with a big question mark on her face. Her Dad kind of cleared his throat and pretended he hadn't quite heard. Emily perked with curiosity and said "What? What did he do? What did he do?" That of course gave little Anna the chance to repeat her question, and then elaborate, happily watching me squirm with each little detail...I love kids.

Anyway, once the cat was out of the bag, I was kind of looking forward to showing Mathilde to see what she thought of my new do. Later that night I took my shirt off for her. She couldn't tell me what she thought right away because she really couldn't talk while laughing that hard. Apparently my haphazard technique didn't have quite the effect I hoped it would.

I got out the trimmer again and cut off all the mangey little patches I had skipped the first time. It looked better, but I still looked a lot goofier than I had before I'd started trimming at all. I now have a light, five o'clock shadow thing going on on some of my chest, with a MUCH more noticeable bald spot smack dab in the middle.

When I was done, Mathilde studied my new chest for a few moments, then patted me on the head and said in her most patronizing voice, "now we won't be doing that again will we?"

I guess not.