Act 1 Scene 1 - The contessa goes Brazilian

Yes you heard correctly and you heard it here first.

I was prepped for the pain by everyone. Including the lovely woman whose job it was to wax me.

For those of you NOT in the know, this kind of waxing is like advanced bikini waxing. Except when they are done, there is no hair left at all in your "bikini" area.

So given the sensitivity in that locale, you can imagine the pain involved.

Being prepared for it, and combined with being nervous as hell, you can imagine what a wreck I was. But, I had read up on it, and asked my one lone friend whose actually been doing it for years, and took my 3 aleve before walking in the door. About an hour before.

I had also scheduled a 1 hour massage for afterwards at the same wellness center. I figured I would need it.

They sort of forgot about me..... I was sitting for about 10 minutes in the peaceful and relaxing waiting room ( it was better than my own living room actually!). The receptionist walked past on her way to the rest room and saw me... Oops...

She apologized and 1 minute later the aesthetician came in. She and I went upstairs to the furthest possible room from other people - I figured the screams of pain would disturb the yoga classes, reflexology and massage patients.

So pretty much as described, you undress from the waist down and lie on the table. She explains to me what the process is, what kind of wax is used.

Then, almost without warning, she starts spraying on the prep and then spreadsing the wax. I think the spray had some knd of numbing agent in it. She started ripping and I have to tell you she started from the normal bikini area and it wasn't so bad. No worse than eyebrows or lip waxing to be sure.

Then she moved further inward. WOW that hurt more. The positions she had you moving into made me glad I have been doing pilates. Seriously. Well they had to be good for something.

When all was said and done, to be really honest, I think I scared myself into more pain than there actually was. Oh it hurt. it hurt a lot. But I would do it again. It wasn't as bad as I had expected or anticipated.

Thank God I had the one hour massage afterwards.... I needed all that tension released!