Shaving

One of the ladies I work with stopped by my cube because she smelled urine and thought that, perhaps, I had peed in my cube. I'm not even joking. That's the real reason she came into my cube.

She then noticed that I had shaved. These days, when I shave, I use a hair razor and shave myself down to a pretty prominent five o'clock shadow. Why? Because 1. I hate shaving, 2. My job allows it, and 3. It's easy. And when I grow my beard, it's not because I'm actually growing it or taking care of it, I'm just not shaving, which makes my beard grow. So my beard isn't anything to brag about. Just a bunch of pubic hair on my cheeks.

So this lady notices that I have shaved.

"You shaved a little," she says to me. "What made you do that?"
"It's a process I go through," I tried to explain. "I let it grow, then I shave it off when it gets to be too much."
"Why? Do you like to do that?"
"No, I just hate shaving."
She scoffed at that. "Well, I hate shaving, too, but WE'RE not allowed to do that!" And she walked away, weighed down by the societal expectations of being a female.
"That's up to you," I said to her back.

You know what, I feel no sympathy for her. She's making a choice to shave her legs. If she hates it so much, she should stop. But the way she's playing life right now, she can't win: she's pissed if she shaves because she hates it, and she's pissed if she doesn't shave because it's not acceptable for women to do that. No matter what, she loses.

What if she thought about it like this: I have the choice to shave and the choice to not shave. If I shave, I fulfil my societally dictated duties as a female. If I don't shave, I make myself happier. I will choose to not shave and make myself happier. And IF people make fun of me or ask me about it, my answer to them will be "it makes me happier to not be forced to shave."

Or she could think about it like this: If I shave I will make myself happier because I will know that I fit into the standard and I will not be open to ridicule from others. That makes me happier, so I will choose to shave. That way, she can respond with "it makes me happier to shave."

But as it is now, she cannot win. She is pissed she has to shave. She is pissed in not shaving.

Why in the world are so many people so uptight about these things? And there are lots of things we're all uptight about: our lawns, our cars, our clothes, our hair, our fat/thin bodies, our teeth, our friends, our jobs, our homes, our gods, our children, our schooling, our sports teams.
"I like the New Boston Buttfuckers!"
"Well, I like the Blevin Cock Bleeders!"
"You suck!"
If we can just knock off the last sentence, everything will be fine. Or, if we recognize that the last sentence-- "You suck!"-- is a mean sentence intended to degrade you, and it's not spoken by a friend, maybe we wouldn't take it so personally. Maybe we could just blow it off, and blow off the person who said it because, ultimately, how worthwhile are the words of an asshole? If you listen to an asshole, you'll get a earful of farts.

I JUST WROTE THAT!! AND IF YOU HEAR IT ANYWHERE ELSE, YOU KNOW THEY'RE READING ME! I GET A QUARTER EVERY TIME THIS GETS USED!