That Time I Got A Pedicure, A True Adventure Story For Men
Buckle up, my dudes
A prologue: I once owned a bar of soap and only a bar of soap. I did not consider fancy shampoos and conditioners and body scrubs masculine, and when I was younger, especially, I cared deeply about manliness.
I didn’t want anything perfumed to touch my body, for fear that it would instantly turn me into a woman, and then what would I do? Before I learned how to be myself — to listen to the voice inside and not the noise outside — I depended on ready-made identities, and masculinity was one of the first I was ever given. I was also offered “Dallas Cowboy fan” as an identity around that time, too, and I refused.
So for a few years in my twenties, I had a single soap bar in my shower because real men don’t smell like flowers. They smell like gunpowder and leather and fried chicken.
You could also smell like aftershave, which is a kind of gasoline.
These are silly ideas, but I believed them. There were rules, and I had to follow them. Do Special Forces commandos spoil themselves on a mission? I should say not. Beard oil has been used for centuries but can you imagine a Viking gently rubbing rosemary-scented goop into his scruff? Feet are for marching, kicking, and stomping, nothing more. Maybe dancing but not ballet.
