Life of Hardin Vol. III, No. 6

"Don't Try This at Home"

Life of Hardin will not be read this week so that a special public announcement may be brought to you.

Have you ever wanted to try something new? Have you every known you wouldn't like something, but everyone kept telling you and telling you, "Try it. You'll like it"?

Well, don't. I submit my own harrowing escape as a warning to all.

What would a hairdo, scalp massage, manicure, and pedicure cost in the States? Fifty dollars? A hundred dollars? Two hundred? Here all of that runs about 15 to 20. And everyone just raves about it. "You've got to get one. It's SOO relaxing."

My wife got all of the above the other day. Oh, it was SOO relaxing. So I thought, "Maybe I ought to try it."

"So what do they do? What happens to me?" I ask.

First they put you in a chair, I am told. I am glad. I would not want to stand for my own beautification. There are things I would stand for, but not for that. Then they have separate people to grapple your hands, your feet, and your head. And they do not fight fair. They have no sense of propriety. They attack you all at once. One at a time I might could handle, but any man would be overpowered by three at once. Even heroes of old might fall before such an onslaught.

The person assigned to your hair yanks your head back and slops shampoo in your eyes so that you cannot see what the others are doing. Then they douse both your hands and feet in tepid water. Not cold water, to envigorate, nor hot, to soak and cleanse, but tepid, room temperature, spew-from-your-mouth water so that your whole body becomes as bland and clammy as a corpse. Once in a while they tap your knee, which indicates you should raise your foot thus from the water. Am I an elephant to be poked and prodded and trained this way? But if you once raise that leg, they know you have been domesticated and are at their mercy.

Once they have you under control, they begin to turn on the screws. They show their true colors. They begin the interrogation by "pushing back" your cuticles. At this I nearly jumped from my seat! I do not desire to have my cuticles "pushed back," nor do I really desire to know what "pushing back" is. But apparently this has to be done to get the cuticles out of the way so they can come at you with their Loofah. This is some sort of torture instrument--devised in the Far East, I believe--used to scrape your body until it is devoid of skin.

"What do they want to know? What are they going to ask me about?" I demanded.

Why, nothing at all, I am told. They do this simply for the pleasure of it, and don't care one bit whethere you divulge your secrets or not.

This was too much to believe. I came to my feet and stopped the story here. "Is that all? Where is the girl who waves the fig leaf over me?"

There isn't one.

"Where is the girl who stands by peeling the grapes to feed me?"

Not one of those either.

"If I go, can I at least request them?"

Absolutely not.

But it is SOO relaxing. And that is enough relaxation for me. I am so relaxed just with the tale of it I don't think I could stand the real article.

And here is the last indignity they put on you. What do they pay you for the pleasure they get from the poking and prodding? None at all, and they, in fact, charge YOU for the service. So beware. Some people just have no sense of fairness or the correct order of the world.