i think it's in the shed

this weekend i had a facial and a near death experience. wait ... that's like saying i talked to aaron and my brother on friday.

i also had a manicure, which, frankly, is lost on me because the polish is already chipped. i should never do that unless someone else is paying for it.

sure dodged a bullet there.

anyway! the facial. not a big fan. the music's nice, and i'm happy to lay there for an hour with a hot towel on my face if you'll indulge me ... even so, in the midst of any relaxing treatment, i don't care what it is, no one, i don't care who you are, wants to be at the business end of this conversation:

"the next exfoliant is 5% acid. you may feel a slight itchy burn, but if it really starts to hurt, tell me and i'll wash it off immediately."

"does that happen a lot?"

"well, not a lot. but it does happen."

seriously, when did flesh-eating acid become soothing? after that you're subjected to the steam that makes it hard to breathe and then the extraction process ... not only is this another "let me know if i'm hurting you" step, but it also causes a massive breakout by the next morning.

relax! it's good for you.

with all of that out of the way, you get another hot towel, some kind of cooling mask that makes up for the trauma of the preceding 25 minutes, and about 15 minutes to yourself without someone looking at you through a 100x magnifying glass. this is the best part. a quiet room, a warm bed, and white noise ... but not like the the movie, which hardly deserves a mention.

people say they sometimes fall asleep at this part (i could still be talking about the movie, but i'm not). did i fall asleep? of course not! i was worried about who might come through the door next ... and what kind of sharp object they might have in their coat. instead, i did some serious thinking. i went to one of those places in my brain that has of late been carrying on unsupervised, and i wondered ... how different would the world be if we all shed our skin like snakes?

[don't worry. this is normal.]

ok, suppose every 6 weeks or so your eyes glazed over and you spent a couple days peeling in a very complete, very methodical way. how itchy would that be? and! would your employer’s benefits package include standard time off for those days? would people who make more money or have more seniority than you also get more "shedding time off" privileges?

"if you’ve worked here for three or fewer years, you get two weeks of vacation and 18 shedding days. after that, you get one more shedding day per year."

like most things, it’s gotta be harder to do as you get older and less flexible. naturally, you'll need more time.

the last time i had a pedicure, the nail technician asked me how often i exfoliate my legs. not that it was any of her business, but my routine was apparently not up to standard, so she tried to sell me something that would "help."

that's fine, but if my skin sloughed off at predictable intervals, she’d be out of a job (or at least a commission) and the skin care aisle in Ukrop’s would be reduced to a small stand near the paper products that carried aloe and some other kind of universal balm. ‘nuff said. Bert's Bees would so be out of business, and the poor bees would have to go back to making boring honey. ho-hum.

what about all the Johnson and Johnson employees and dermatologists of the world? they'd be sleeping on park benches and loitering around emergency rooms.

got acne? give it a few weeks … it’ll go away. there. now i’m a dermatologist. it’s gone from being a highly-skilled profession to something that someone with an 18-month degree (or even i) could do with little or no training.

just had surgery? i guarantee you'll forget you even had a scar within 2 months. there goes neosporin's marketing campaign.

you'll want to have stock in beverage companies and jell-o ... they'll be hot industries.

i can't decide if day spas will still exist or not. will anyone need a face treatment if they're going to have all new skin in a matter of weeks? or will oprah insist that we subject more than just our faces to the acid test because it will help us discover our true inner selves? damn her.

there's so much to consider! would i still need to wear 30 spf sunscreen? how would i plan my vacations? what about tanning salons? where will those former employees loiter?

it's a good thing that the facial lady came back when she did ... i was finally able to relax.