Tick, Fleas, And The Finer Things in Life

It may not come through on the blog, but I am not the girliest of girls. I don't wear makeup, except at Halloween; I don't wear perfume, ever; and my devotion to green (it is the best of all possible colors, at least for me, and will be the subject of another blog post) means I never wear pink.
But I am grateful for at least one aspect of the morally bankrupt beauty industry, and that is depilator creams. Let me be clear: the hairiness of my legs does not concern me as a general principle. Anyone close enough to tell had better be beyond caring. If humans were all I had to worry about, I wouldn't worry.
Humans are not all I have to worry about.
Come the summer months, I like to run around-or, well, ambulate around-in shorts and short socks. When I moved to my current location (Sticksville, Population: Cows)I found something besides peace and a lovely green smell in the waving grass and thick undergrowth. Or a lot of somethings. Or they found me.
Yes, my heart may be full of love (or blood, one would hope), but my yard is full of ticks, despite the best efforts of the cows. And fleas. And weird little clear bugs...
And they all think I'm delicious, and they all loooove hairy legs. If they were human, this would be flattering; since they're not, it's icky. I'm not quite that xenophilic (plus, I would like to keep my heart full of blood, thank you.).
So I depilate. I tried shaving a few times, but as the Waco Kid says, "I shoot with this hand."* Leeches couldn't get as much blood out of me as I did with that razor. Sam Peckinpah, eat your heart out.
So that left me with depilating creams. Which work. They work great! They take off the hair, no doubt. And they make my skin itchy and dry for days, and they stink to high heaven, and they make my fingernails slimy. But no bugs! And no fun.
But giveaways are fun! Especially when I win something, like a big fat gift certificate to Favors R Us. No sooner did I get my certificate, than I bounced over to Favors R Us, with A Plan.
Today, the cream of stinking became necessary once more (dear deer ticks: kindly drop dead en masse. Thank you.) So unfurred myself. And then, in hope, deployed my new Secretish Weapon:



Cucumber Aloe Sugar Scrub.
Right away, the itching stopped. When I toweled off, my legs didn't smell like chemical; they smelled like Nice. And my nails look better than they did before I deployed the dread cream.
So, I don't know if sugar scrub reverses the effects of aging, or sun damage, or pregnancy. But I know it undoes the nasty effects of some very nasty chemicals in about thirty seconds, and doesn't even tear up my skin doing it. Triumph!

*If you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch Blazing Saddles. If you do know what I'm talking about, watch it again!