It has advantages

While watching the finale of "The Amazing Race" last night, my husband started to visibly cringe when all of the participants--male and female--had to undergo a Brazilian body waxing. While Frank winced at the coverage of hair being ripped from human flesh, I was absorbed by my own attempts to imagine participating in the episode. I was puzzled, actually, as I tried to imagine what would happen to me in that situation.

Here's the thing. I have essentially no body hair. There is no lack of hair on my head, but my arms and legs, which used to have a somewhat downy covering of baby-fine blond hair, are almost entirely hair-free. I do not have to shave my underarms because there is nothing there to shave. Occasionally I will sprout one or two lone, fine underarm hairs, but otherwise, the skin is smooth, soft, and hairless.

I wasn't always like this, though. I was never a particulary hirsute person at all, bu somewhere in my 30s, my skin stopped producing hair. No one has ever been able to explain this to me.

There is an exception: My big toe, and that's just a bizarre anomaly, all things considered.

A Brazilian body wax would probably strip me of my skin. Ewwww.