Happy-go-fucking-lucky McPositive and the Curse of the Hairy Man-Bra

The Devil makes work...

Being the 70-year-old retired widow that I am, I’ve begun to have a bath a few days a week instead of a shower. Basically, I read in some important man’s magazine (like Elle or Cosmo or Gaghappy Cumdumpster Cheerleaders something) that if you have trouble sleeping, you should have a bath.
Apparently, your body relaxes in the hour following a bath; your heartbeat slows, your blood pressure drops and you become sleepy. As I have pretty heavy-duty insomnia, I desperately try most old wives’ remedies and have started having a regular radox hour…plus, baths are fucking thrash!
(ps, when I say I’ve started having baths, I mean that I’ve started having a bath in lieu of my usual shower. I’ve not just learned how to clean myself or anything, it’s okay… also, when I say I try everything to sleep, that may or may not include using an lavender linen spray for my pillow – surely that’s worthy of a TMIT)

So tonight was no different. After my penultimate (37th) cup of tea of the day, I drew a ridiculously over-hot bath, brought in my laptop to listen to music (it sits on the toilet-I have a system, critics) and sang ‘I am what I am’ as the mirrors steamed up.

It. Was. Awesome.

Overheated Conor, listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast, drinking soda. Fucking bliss.
Anyway, there I was, listening away, soaking in the steaming water, and letting my mind wander when I realised that I was holding my razor. They say that ‘the Devil makes work for idle hands’, and that’s definitely true because, without realizing it, as I listened and chuckled away, I had sorta begun to shave my belly. Why? I have no idea, but for some reason I had subconsciously begun to shear my happy trail.

(happy trail = the little desire line of hair from a guy’s belly button to his man-candy)

“Okay, my right hand has, without recourse to conscious thought, begun the process of de-hairing my body. That’s a bit odd.” I thought, but I let it run.

Before long I was hooked. Maybe it’s a guy thing, but I can get absolutely obsessed with little simple things. Give me a tap and an empty bottle, and I can spend ages refilling and emptying it, like I was a six year old doing science. Within ten minutes, the Trail was gone, and the area where well-toned people have abs (what I call my ‘Guinness Baby’) was hairless, pale and looking somewhat forlorn.

I panicked. WTF? Grown-ups don’t do this do they? They don’t experiment with shaving themselves. I mean, all guys do it to some extent when they’re drunk, giving themselves handlebar moustaches and falling asleep to wake and realise they look like daft pricks, but I was sober. Perhaps the hours and hours of free time I have, the empty hours of insomnia and the listless days of unemployment, those 165 free hours a week have gotten to me? I mean, instead of working on writing, or practicing music, here I was…shaving my belly in the bath. What if my Mother called tomorrow?


[‘Hello Con?’

‘Hi Mum!’

‘How’s the job hunt going?’

‘Not the best Mum, it’s harder to find work than I thought’

‘Oh well, just keep at it..’

‘Okay, I will’

‘So, how are you spending your days, are you volunteering? Studying? Writing?’

‘No, Mum, I spend my days waiting for free internet and eating cherry bakewell tart then I buy the paper, have a bath, and shave my torso’

‘Oh, good lad, we’re so proud son.’

‘Thanks mum, I do try.’]

So I had a bald pink belly…what next?

Even as the thought manifested itself, my hand had begun to inch up my sternum (is that the word? Maybe thorax?) and was shaving shapes and patterns into the trail of hair leading to my tits.

So far so cool.

Before long, I had a white belly, a pink sternum and a sorta man-boob bra, made of hair.

Single file,ladies…single file. No pushing, please.

Anyway, by that stage I was legitimately fucked. Seriously. How could I ever risk anyone, anywhere, ever seeing the hair-bra? Not that I imagine I’ll ever be taking my top off (despite the obvious sex-appeal of the hair-bra) but on the off chance of one of the following two potential scenarios happening:

1) Being caught in a nuclear explosion and in the millisecond between the shockwave from the blast ripping my clothes off and my skin catching on fire, someone seeing the wispy, underwired home for my bosom, distinctive only because of the Casper whiteness of the rest of my torso. Even a nuclear holocaust deserves to be as non-socially-awkward as possible, right?

And,

2) A horse eating my shirt because, as I suspect, horses have a vendetta for something I did when I was young but can’t remember.
The hair-bra had to go.

Now, the razor was (as all guys out there will understand) near the end of the several-shave razor cycle; that very finite, but unwritten, time period during which a razor blade will go from Gillette to ruthless Guillotine, from multi-blade face-smoothation system to bona fide nipple remover. Anyway, it was fucking awful. It was pain dot com forwardslash holy fuck forward slash ouch.

I had my chest waxed for charity last year. There wasn’t a helluva lot to remove I’ll admit, but the process was made bearable and fun by the fact that I was being toughish in public, and that it was for cancer research (and also because it was in the ‘nice’ spectrum of pain, like when I got my tattoo or used to get punched in boxing, that I’ll admit to actually liking – btw, no, I’m not a perv, you know what I mean). After the waxing, I had gone home to shave the remaining wax tears out of my chest and wash off the fake tan that the girl had rubbed over me (we really know how to raise money for charity the fun way in Ireland!)

This bath shave required a steel jaw, it was like strolling merrily towards the German trenches during the Somme. Dragging an ever-blunter razor across my chest and willing the hair to disappear, all the while waiting for that little slice that meant that I had cut off a nipple, and trying desperately not to clog the little balde-ettes with hair or dead skin. At the very least, it was a fucking great way to exfoliate…by removing a layer of skin.

So now, I sit, at 3 am, having just recorded a video. I’m trying to sleep but my belly and chest feel wrong. My only consolation is this: I’ve maybe potentially kinda sorta started seeing someone, and she’s great. I really don’t ever want to take my top off for at least two months now because of the pale stubbly itchy blotchy meringue of a mess that it will be, so I think I might as well strap the chastity belt on til February. I'll take it slowly, and hope to Christ that no horses come anywhere near me.

So yeah, tomorrow/today is Monday, and I’ve GOT to find work, and maybe hide the razor when I’m in the bath. Otherwise, who knows…maybe next time I’ll end up with Venus ‘oh baby you’ve got it’ silky legs, or a DIY bris.