The Worst Decision I've Ever Made (before a wrestling meet) |Cheerleading Tales from the Crypt Part 3|

In this installment I’ll tell you about the worst decision I ever made before going to a wrestling meet. 

When I was a high school girl I was much like I am now.

Except now I found an additional 30 pounds, 

Except now I know how to do winged eye liner,

Except now I shave EVERY time I shower.

Please refrain from commenting, that last one is essential information to this story.

We cheered for wrestling at our high school. 

Our wrestlers were very good, taking the State Championship my senior year.

Why do I tell you this? So you know that this sporting event drew a larger than usual crowd at our high school.

This is probably why this story is in my “embarrassing moments” collection.

No matter our hectic schedules our family almost always sat down to dinner during the week. It would be maybe an hour of quiet with the family then we were off and running again. 

This particular night I had a wrestling meet to be at by 7. 

Now I may or may not struggle with punctuality.

No, that’s not right.

I may. 

I do.

I’m always late.

We’ll go into reasons for this at another time. 

I’m convinced it’s a problem I have with math, my husband might tell you otherwise, but he’s not writing this blog now is he?

That winter night back in my high school days I was running late, as usual.

As I was dressing in my sleeveless cheer uniform I realized it was most likely eons (or the last home game) that I had shaved my underarms.

I ran to the bathroom and grabbed my handy single-blade disposable razor (most decidedly NOT a Venus, those weren’t invented yet).

And I proceeded to dry shave.

I shaved, and shaved, and shaved only to finally discover that dang razor was so dull you could ride it to town.

Cr@p, time was running out!

I went to plan B.

I grabbed my bottle of Nair.

Oh what, you’ve not heard of Nair?

Nair is a compound that disintegrate hair off any living animal and begins to disintegrate any flesh under the hair it happens to touch.

What could go wrong with Nair?

I slathered the foul-smelling lotion on both under arms and 2.367 seconds later…

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

BURNING FLESH AFIRE!!!

A primeval scream, audible to the entire neighborhood, escaped my lips.

At that point the intense burning from my underarms had me standing over the bathroom sink splashing copious amounts of water into both pits—much like a hot monkey trying to cool itself.

Glancing at the clock I knew my beauty routine needed to have been completed 5 minutes past so I rushed to my room to put on deodorant.

It was then I realized that was not going to happen. 

In trying to shave I had scraped probably the first 6 layers of my dermis off my underarms.

In trying to Nair I had received probably 6 degree chemical burns in my underarms.

In trying to put on deodorant I realized my brand newly scraped and burned skin would take no more abuse.

I went to the meet with red, bloody-raw, non-deodorized pits… that were still not smooth-shaven...

That night I may or may not have been the T-Rex cheerleader.