2003-03-25

Guerilla Depilation

So, last week I'm pretty certain that the city of Boston agreed to host the national convention of Folks Who Want to Gross Lisa Out (FWWGLO) last week, and didn't give me any kind of warning. Fuckers.

Twice last week on the subway I entered the car to find someone blithely cutting his or her fingernails. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of cutting my fingernails; I just choose to do it OVER THE WASTEBASKET IN THE PRIVACY OF MY BATHROOM. In both cases, I sat there in mute horror as the offending clipper just trimmed and trimmed away, sending miniscule shards of fingernail flying this way and that.

Also last week, on the subway, I was sitting there engrossed in my knitting (I'm working with this Pepto Bismol pink "fun fur" stuff; can't decide whether to make a series of cuffs for some black sweaters of mine, or to do a big ol' boa-like scarf, but I digress) when I was hit with an olfactory assault some two seats down. There sat a woman old enough to know better, PAINTING HER FINGERNAILS. Okay, there are numerous things wrong with this scenario, but for brevity's sake I will stick to the two most pertinent: 1) nail polish REEKS. 2) You're on THE ORANGE LINE, in all its herky-jerky glory. No one's hand is exactly Gibraltar-esque under these circumstances; how do you expect to get even remotely tidy-looking nails by attempting such a thing?

Really now, chickens. What is it about some people who think nothing of extending their morning ablutions into the commute? Occasionally, one sees some hardbodied Narcissus type doing chin-ups on the handlebars, and this is sort of amusing in the same way a poodle in a sweater is amusing. But personal grooming on the train is just gross. Where do you draw the line? Where? If I was one of them performance art types, and had nothing better to do (eg: ran out of Clown White and Hershey's syrup), I might consider taking to the subways with a bath towel and a bottle of Nair, you know, just to see what would happen. I'd call it "Guerilla Depilation," and by God, people would pay attention to me then, boy howdy. I'm so fucking clever, I can't hardly stand myself some days.

lisamcc at 7:43 a.m.

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