By: Drew Mayes

Never again will I yell, "What's taking you so long?" to a girlfriend. Never again will I sigh just loud enough for her to hear me when she yells back, "Just a few more minutes." From this day on, I'll simply turn on the TV or surf the net and be grateful a girl even wants to go out with me.

Why this newfound understanding, you may ask? Well, in preparation for my first bodybuilding show, I've done something I never thought I would - I've shaved my legs. Honestly, I thought this would be simple. It isn't.

Every morning for more than decade it's taken me less than five minutes to shave my face. With this knowledge, I thought by doubling my face shaving time and allotting 10 minutes for my legs I would be giving myself a safe, conservative estimate of the time I'd need to set aside. Needless to say, I underestimated the time needed for this little project and found out a new cardio/balancing routine in the process.

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Author, Drew Mayes: "Honestly, I
Thought This Would Be Simple. It Isn't."

Not knowing exactly how to even start shaving my legs and being too embarrassed to ask any of my female friends, I'd thought I start by trying the bath technique I'd seen in so many movies and sitcoms throughout the years. You know the one where the girl sits in the oversized tub, drinking champagne or eating chocolate and seductively turns her legs into a silky masterpiece? Yeah, I thought it would be like that. It wasn't.

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Trying The Bathtub:

While Hollywood starlets and beauty queen make shaving look easy and even a bit sexy on the big screen, I found the process neither easy nor sexy. Their's not much sexy about a man with one leg covered in shaving cream and the other looking like it has a neurological problem as it stands in a cramped, straight up angle in a pool of dirty water.

After lathering myself up with enough cream to shave a Yeti, I found myself in one uncomfortable situation after another. In an effort to avoid even the hint of water touching my skin before I was ready, I first tried what can only be described as underwater quarter-turns while holding a razor blade.

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I Found The Process Neither Easy Nor Sexy.

Incredible flexibility aside, I found myself quickly losing circulation in my legs and feet and knew a new tactic was needed.

After a few swipes of the razor I noticed I was suddenly surrounded in a mass of my own dirty leg hair. Odd, I thought to myself - I never remembered seeing any hair floating in the bath in the movies. Disappointment and confusion quickly turned to disgust when I realized wet leg hair was sticking to the side my bathtub.

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Doing my best to convince myself that the tough bodybuilder guys I want to be like are genetically predisposed to gross things, I refused to let leg hair bother me anymore than a spider in the tub - sure it's gross, but easily dealt with. While shaved wet leg hair is no more gross than any sort of creepy crawly, it was the tub turning red that I had to call an end to the first bathtub experience.

I've cut myself shaving before, but the blood from my face always seemed to drift effortlessly down the sink in the past, but in the tub - there's no place for the blood from a nicked knee to go. Instead, it simply sits with you and your dirty leg hair.

Filled with disappointment, one bloody and one hairy leg, I couldn't help but remember the time I told my Dad I was going to take a bath and he asked me, "Why would you want to wash your face with the same water you just washed butt with?"

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Switching To The Shower:

With one leg bloodied, but shaved, I decided to give the other a try standing in the shower. No floating leg hair mixed with your own pool of blood, no muss, no fuss - and apparently no lather. One of the benefits to the tub I had taken for granted was how convenient the shaving cream stays on the leg.

No sooner did I lather up leg number two did the water from the shower head run down my back and chest onto my leg - taking my shot at two equally silky smooth legs with it.

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Finally, moving into the corner of the shower where no hot water would hit my body, I gently finished off leg number two. Standing there - naked, cold, with small lines of blood running down my legs - I realized something - bodybuilding's hard.

drew@drewmayes.com

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