Wax on

Saturday afternoon I visited the woman who waxes my eyebrows. There are those of you who probably think paying someone to wax your eyebrows is a waste of money. To you, I say: clearly you have not seen me when I am alone with my tweezers. Trust me, it's not pretty.

I love this woman because in addition to being incredible at her job, she is full of character. She's from Uzbekistan. How do I know that? Because once she made me guess what country she came from, exaggerating her accent and then mocking me when I didn't come up with the answer quickly.

After I had guessed about 35 countries, including Iceland and Canada, she finally told me that it had been part of the biggest country in the world.

"Russia!" I cried in desperation.

She nodded. "It is a smaller country now that was part of USSR."

"Kazakhstan?"

"Oh, you are close. It's Uzbekistan."

I can't believe she gave it away right when I was almost there.

This time we didn't talk about our hometowns. It was a hot, humid day and I was late for my appointment because everyone in the city decided it would be a good idea to walk down Broadway as slowly as they possibly could. I resisted the urge to kick people as they merged onto the sidewalk from air-conditioned stores. This was somewhat challenging.

As a result of my tardiness, talk was kept to a minimum. I laid quietly on the table.

"Stop making that face," she said and tried to smooth the furrow between my eyebrows. "You are going to have lots of wrinkles."

"I can't help it," I mumbled, trying to keep all of my muscles still. "This is just what my face does."

"Relax. Pretend you are sleeping."

Seconds passed.

"SLEEP!" she yelled.

No problem. That is, if by "sleep" you mean "start laughing".

"Shhh! You are talking with your eyebrows!"

"I'm Italian!" I protested.

"Italian, I know. You are very emotional."

Moments later she finished, took a step back and said, "It's perfect."

"If you do say so yourself," I said, taking the mirror from her.

"I'm good."

So true.