Waxing Poetic

I'm always amused when talking to people that aren't from here and hearing the things that freely flow from their mouths without pretense and with such a profound insouciance for what might be deemed politically correct in American circles. Like good ol' Quynh last week rambling on about various personal ailments which plagued her and her cavalier attitude about discussing the sexual attitudes of her internet suitors with complete strangers on an airplane, one of my co-workers dropped a doozy over lunch today. Telling a group of us that were crammed into a table at a burger joint in the heart of Silicon Valley that he was scheduled to meet with the grandparents of the girl he was dating this weekend, and that he might be considering advancing this relationship to another stage with a planned move to Atlanta to be closer to her, he let it slip that he got his back waxed.

Yeah, the little needle on the little record on the little turntable in my head scratched too. This was lost on none of the other 3 guys at the table.

"Wait, wait, wait...hold up...you did what?"

"I got my back waxed," he said not sheepishly at all, but rather quite matter of factly.

The other 3 of us groaned the way that we might if we witnessed a low blow during a boxing match. This guy was getting his back waxed in preparation for a long weekend with the current object of his affection. She had brought it up as a point of contention during what sounded like a very reasonable discussion, and they had agreed (THEY had agreed) that he would proceed to get his back waxed. Do you know what that involves? Sticky stuff (like fly paper) and pulling hair...and quite suddenly. I'm not sure what is more remarkable; the fact that they had a discussion on the subject, that he had entertained the idea of doing something about the apparent layer of fur on his back, that he had actually gone ahead and done the deed, or that he was actually telling us about it over some greasy hamburgers, french fries and fountain milk shakes?

It should be noted that he's from Canada. They're a little less barbaric than us folks south of the border. They pay homage to a queen...THE Queen (of England of course) and have a parliament to make their laws. Our Parliament is run by a guy named George (Clinton not Bush) and exists as One Nation, Under a groove...gettin' down just for the funk of it. Maybe our Canadian brothers are more secure in their masculinity than we are. Down here, we'd sooner thump our chests than have them waxed. And if, heaven forbid, we were forced to undergo such a procedure (it would have to be a medical emergency or something life threatening) we sure wouldn't tell anybody about it.

He was unbending though, never succumbing to our sophomoric attempts at shaming his hen-pecked backside. You gotta respect that. I left it alone fairly quickly. I was still amused, but just as much by his candor and willingness to discuss as by the fact that he actually did it. It's late, so I won't go into it now, but I could recall many a story about foreign teammates or classmates and very matter of fact things that they have let out of their mouths. Oh, how I love diversity.