Writers Tricks of the Trade VOLUME 8, ISSUE 4 | Page 12

L IFE S TORIES BY K EITH B ETTINGER
M Y F IRST B IKINI W AX
Yes, a bikini wax, but don’t let your mind run rampant. I assure you, it is
not what you this it is.
W
ell gang, I had my first bikini
wax the other day. Slow down,
before you start spreading
rumors—no I haven’t started
playing for the “other team,” nor was I
“manscaping”. I was practicing emergency
medical treatment. Yes, you read that cor-
rectly— emergency medical treatment.
Out here is the Southwest we have an
interesting variety of plants—Cacti—the
plural of Cactus. They are very attractive
from a distance. They are also a great
crime prevention tool when planted un-
der ground floor windows. When their
flowers bloom they are beautiful. They
are also zero maintenance here in the de-
sert. However, when they really start to
grow some of them can grow like weeds.
I was looking at my two cacti as they
were growing towards my neighbor’s
walkway. I came to the assumption that if
I didn’t trim them, they would soon over-
run the sidewalk to his backyard.
In order to remedy the situation, I got
out my trusty four dollar Wal-Mart ma-
chete, and was merrily swinging away as
if I was Indiana Jones fighting my way
through the jungle. Then I experienced
something Indiana Jones didn’t. As one of
the cactus branches fell, it fell my way.
Since I wasn’t wearing Indy’s trusty and
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE
protective leather jacket, the branch
landed on my arm and embedded numer-
ous cactus spines in my left arm.
I started the spine removal process
with tweezers. That was like bailing out
the Titanic with a shot glass. Then I re-
membered a television show I watched
one night. It was about strange happen-
ings in hospital emergency rooms. A doc-
tor was on duty with his staff of nurses.
The nurses were reading a magazine ad
about bikini waxing. They were teasing
the doctor about the process and the re-
sults, as well as the pained look on his
face.
Shortly thereafter, a mother and fa-
ther brought their small daughter into the
emergency room. The child had rolled
down a hill on the side of the road right
into a cactus patch. Her entire body was
covered with cactus spines. The doctor
tried removing them with tweezers, but
quickly came to the same conclusion
about the Titanic and the shot glass.
The child was in a great deal of pain
and her condition was worsening. The
doctor wanted to anesthetize her. The
parents, who had lost a child during sur-
gery, would not allow the child to be put
under. The fear was real for them, but not
very proactive for the child. The doctor
P AGE 7
W INTER 2019