ANNOUNCEMENT: Before I get into this week’s column, I just want to let you know I finally have expanded my free sci-fi novella, “Inside the Blue Cube,” into a full-length novel! It has gone from 32,000 words to 122,000. So whether you’ve already read the original novella and are curious to know what happened after it ended, or you’ve never downloaded any of it before and want to read the complete novel for the first time, just click on the link at the bottom of this page to read the novel (in e-book form) FREE! There is no catch – I just want people to read what I write and hopefully, enjoy it! It’s also my first attempt at writing science fiction, so if nothing else, it might be good for a laugh (intentionally or otherwise!).
Now, on to the subject of home electrolysis!
You’d think that by now, I’d be old enough to realize that when I try to cut corners, I usually end up losing money. Such was the case with a catalog order I placed several months ago.
The item was a do-it-yourself electrolysis kit. When I first saw the ad for it, it sounded like a dream come true. This kit wasn’t like the others I had seen, where you have to kill one hair at a time by jabbing the roots with an electric needle and holding it there for hours before the hair finally surrenders and drops dead.
No, this state-of-the-art kit had self-adhering pads that you just stick onto your skin and kill hundreds of unwanted hairs all in one shot. And the ad really emphasized the word “kill.” Stubborn hair would be gone forever, it promised, gone to that giant hairball in the sky, never to return again.
Needless to say, I was excited. If there's one thing I've learned about growing older, it's that you begin to lose hair where you want to keep it, and start growing it where you don't want to see it - like your chin and upper lip. Could I, I wondered, really throw away my tweezers, my Nair, my wax strips and my razors? Could I really have forever-smooth skin and finally be rid of those three stubborn black hairs on my chin - the ones that are the consistency of wire and defy all attempts to pluck them with anything weaker than vise-grips?
There was only one way to find out. I wrote out a check for $102.99 and sent for the machine.
Unfortunately, the item was back-ordered and took nearly a month to arrive. When it did, I immediately tore open the box and examined the contraption. It looked like a torture device.
Coming out of the little white plastic machine were three wires - one that snapped onto the self-adhering hair-removal pad, another that snapped onto the “ground” pad (the pad that prevents you from getting an electrical jolt that will make all of the body hair that’s NOT under the pad stand up straight on end) and a third one that connected to the conductor pad.
Eager to get started, I hooked up the pads, then slapped one onto my chin and the other two onto my arm. I cranked up the machine to “super kill.”.
“If you have any dental fillings, you might experience a slight metallic taste in your mouth during the treatment,” the instruction booklet stated.
Metallic was an understatement. A few seconds into the treatment, I felt as if I had been chewing on a ball of aluminum foil.
“And you might experience a slight tingling sensation,” the booklet also added.
“Slight tingling” turned out be the equivalent of being attacked by a swarm of killer bees. Still, I figured the torture would be short-lived and worth every minute if it saved me from ever having to shave or pluck again.
When I finished one section of my chin, I moved the pads to another section. In my eagerness, I did something unthinkable. I yanked one of the wires too hard and tore it, along with the snap, right out of the ground pad.
Panicking, I grabbed some duct tape and taped the snap back onto the pad. Then I tried it. I swear my eyes flashed “TILT” when I turned on the machine, the jolt was so shocking. Then, the machine went dead. Frustrated, I tore off the pads and tossed them back into the box. Leave it to me, I thought, silently cursing myself. In only 10 minutes, I had managed to destroy a $103 machine.
I desperately scanned the warranty information in the booklet and happened to notice an order blank for a set of replacement pads…for $36. Muttering under my breath, I wrote out another check. I figured I had no choice. I mean, I needed those darned pads or the machine would be useless. Still, I thought $36 was a pretty high price to pay for my carelessness.
A month passed, with no sign of the pads. I called the company in New York. The customer-service lady told me my order was at the warehouse in California and would be shipped soon. Another month passed. Again, I was told the order was in California.
“How much longer will it take?” I protested. “I desperately need those pads! Do you want me to end up looking like a gorilla?"
“I’ll have someone call you about it tomorrow,” she answered mechanically, not sounding the least bit sympathetic.
Had I been holding my breath waiting for the call, I’d have been as blue as a Smurf...and most likely dead. Once again, I called the company.
“We’re sorry,” the woman who answered said. “The company has changed hands and we have no idea what happened to the California orders. No one is even answering the phones out there anymore. I suggest you put a stop-payment on your check.”
“Are you trying to tell me I’m never going to get the pads?” I asked.
“It doesn’t look that way,” she said.
I never did receive them, never was able to use the machine again, and never was able to get a refund...because a warranty isn't any good if there's no one around to honor it.
Am I upset that I wasted a total of $139 on a product I used for only 10 minutes? No, of course not, not at all.
Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go spend every remaining minute of my life tracking down the former owner of the company so I can replace that pad I broke. Then I'm going to turn my electrolysis machine up to "super kill" and duct-tape the wires to his...
Never mind.
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