The other waxing lady

Anyone who's read "The Waxident" will know that Kuniko, my favorite waxing lady ever, left me with no warning and that I was very upset about it. After that I had to try someone new, so I started seeing Choon. She was fine, but more expensive because, as you know, Kuniko gave me a secret discount.

So in October of 2007, I was getting ready to go on a cruise to the Western Caribbean and made a visit to Choon at Anthony Garubo. She asked me what I was going to do on the cruise so I told her that I was just going to go to the beaches... I wasn't interested in any excursions.

This is when Choon started telling me about all of her snorkeling experiences. She and her boyfriend were seriously into snorkeling and she tried to convince me to try it. Well, the funny thing about that is: I have tried it. So I told her my story...

March 2006:
I am prepared to snorkel. I am mentally prepared to face my fear of fish touching me. I am equipped with the mask and snorkel I brought thousands of miles by air and sea to Grand Cayman. I paid for the cruise excursion and I have Jill, my snorkel buddy there with her flippers and mask.

When they tell us that we're going to go to the end of the pier and climb into the water, I'm definitely put off because I was expecting to wade into the water and stay in the shallow end. But when they tell us that we might see a large fish that looks like a shark but isn't, I am no longer prepared for this. I've got my mask on and my flippers on and I've got my underwater camer hanging on it's little rubber band from my wrist. I'm lagging behind the group a bit because I'm nervous as hell and I want to see every last person get in the water before I try it.

So finally, Jill gets in and it's my turn. So I turn my back to the water and take hold of the ladder's railings, lowering my flippered feet one-by-one onto the steps. Over the course of the next five minutes I make it about half way down the ladder and the rest of the group is getting pretty far away from the dock. There's a group coming in, but there is no way I'm rushing into the water to let them out and I'm not ready to give up on the idea altogether, and since there is another ladder, I decide they only need one and I clearly need the other.

Little by little, I lower myself into the water and finally I let go of the ladder.

5

4

3

2

1

Splash, splash, splash, I am flipping and paddling myself back to my ladder and pulling myself out of that water exponentially faster than I got in. If this had been TiVo, it would have been frame by frame into the water and then 3x fast forward out.

I'm flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-flopping back down the dock and then I hear another flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-flop behind me and I turn around and it's a terrified, half-drowned Jill running for her life from the shark (the one they told us was not a shark). I just want to say that she was brave. I surely would have all-the-way drowned if I saw that thing.

The instructor who stayed back comes over to us and we're huffing and puffing and practically falling over thanks to our flippers and asks what's wrong. Well Jill saw the shark-fish, and I'm just a baby. But I'm really disappointed that I won't get to see any fish, so the instructor walks us over to this shallow pool of ocean that is MAYBE a foot deep and tells me to practice there. So I examine the area and decide that it's safe.

Jill's finding it quite amusing to see me on my hands and knees, face in the water, butt in the air looking at sand, and since she's got the underwater camera now... she's documenting my snorkeling experience. And laughing at me.

...
So I finish telling this story to Choon, and she's on the verge of wetting her pants. She's already laughing so hard she's crying, and she's relentless. I don't think I've ever been laughed AT so hard in my life. I feel really safe and secure in her room now. NOT. And can you even believe this... she had me bring in the pictures of my with my face in the water and she put it up on her wall! And she made fun of me every time after that. What a joke.