A Derf Public Service Announcement...Eventually
Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 12:51AM Mrs. G. 
Photo by Melanie Folwell
Mid December, Mrs. G. went shopping for the makings of furikake mix, a sweet, savory snack a friend told her about last year. She wanted to make a big batch to give to friends and neighbors for Christmas. Mrs. G. loves the stuff, but she started to feel apprehensive about others loving it when her daughter took a bite, spit it out and said it tasted like rotten fish. Mrs. G. got downright touchy when her husband and son would walk by the two enormous pans she baked and ask, "What is that smell." "It's Asian Fusion Chex Mix," Mrs. G. said defensively. "It's classy!" she screamed.
Mrs. G. should have just knitted her shitty, uneven scarves and spared everyone the seaweed laced Corn Chex.
Yesterday's post about Mrs. G's dream about Brad Pitt and, more importantly, the realization that she should not talk so much was evident to her and others as she delivered her furikake mix in cute little gift bags tied with gingham ribbon. Even after six years of narcissistic, self "referential" blogging, Mrs. G. is not great at selling herself or her skills. So, when she went next door to give her neighbors their gift, rather than saying Here you go, Merry Christmas! Mrs. G, fraught with good intentions and their arch enemy, doubt, nearly hyperventilated as she stammered I made this for you and your family. I hope you like it. My daughter says it tastes like dead fish, so you might warn your young ones so they aren't shocked but I really hope you like it. Bye! The neighbors have never mentioned the furikake mix so next year they get shitty scarves.
Nearing a Yuletide come apart about what she was going to do with the eight pounds of furikake mix in her kitchen (she could only eat three), Mrs. G. put the word out on Facebook to see if there were any takers. There were, mainly Mrs. G's friends who are Japanese or felt sorry for her. Apparently furikake mix is an acquired taste.
But speaking of talking too much, this is not a story about furikake mix.
When Mrs. G. went to go shopping for the furikake mix ingredients, she decided to stop at the beauty shop by the grocery store and have her eyebrows waxed. She has never been successful with tweezers -- her long abandoned, flawed system involved removing tiny chunks of skin along with each hair. Anyway, the waxer was busy and there was going to be a long wait, so the proprietor of the shop suggested Mrs. G. try something called threading, which is an Eastern ancient hair removal process where a special cotton thread is doubled and rolled over unwanted hair, plucking it out at the follicles. Mrs. G. decided to give it a try because she was in a hurry to make furakaki mix no one was going to eat and threading costs about the same price as waxing.
Mrs. G. sat down in the chair and a nice East Indian woman came over, pulled the cotton thread out of her pocket and began torturing Mrs. G. and her face. Imagine feeling each individual eyebrow hair ripped from your head and then imagine the practitioner asking you to hold up your eyelid while this is happening. Mrs. G. was scrunched up in the chair trying to dodge the thread and she couldn't hold up her eyelid because it was pouring tears and twitching from the burning pain. Burning pain, sisters, burning pain. The nice East Indian woman was politely reminding Mrs. G. to hold up her eyelids and Mrs. G. tried, she really tried, and then she told the woman to stop. "Is something wrong," she asked. "Yes, it hurts! It's killing me!" "We can't refund your money," the woman said slowly, as if she were talking to a featherweight not capable of bearing the physiological cost of beauty. "Fine," said Mrs. G, "just get me out of this chair."
Short story long: Eyebrow threading. Don't do it.
