Of Leaves and Leg Hairs

I am naturally a very spoiled person and like any naturally spoiled person there are things that I would place in my "perfect world." I love the look of trees - green full of life and swaying in the wind. I love when they change colors and fill the world with vibrant reds, oranges, yellows and purples. I don't like when they die and fall onto my lawn and stay there until I have to remove them. In my perfect world - trees would always keep their leaves or the leaves would magically disappear before they hit the ground. My kids on the other hand have no problem with leaves on the ground - in fact they consider the leaves on the ground as one of the coolest things in their world to play with. While I was hefting a heavy leaf blower (are you kidding me - I'm not going to do manual raking? Not when I have a big strong husband around to do it. Pshhh.) around my whole yard today to clean up the carnage of dead leaves I considered a few things...

Falling leaves remind me a lot of growing leg hairs. As I diligently did my home owner's duty to my lawn, I watched still more leaves fall from the trees right where I had cleared the ground. It doesn't matter how well I clear the leaves, more are going to fall. No matter how well I shave my legs, the hairs will keep coming back.

So why do I do either? Well of course they both look nicer. They both are more attractive and both are considered essential maintenance. But they both pose a great deal of work and they both only bring short lived happiness. The only real difference I see is at least at the end of the season, eventually all the leaves will fall and I wont have to rake again for a whole year. Why cant my leg hairs go into hibernation for the winter too?

Stay with me - I understand I am working on limited mental resources ever since many of my brain cells were eaten by the baby. In a few weeks I hope to sound more rational.

Back to the subject at hand - Technology has allowed us many new ways to make getting rid of leaves easier. My neighbors have separate lawn mowers (ride on even) that are only designed to suck up the leaves, chew them up and deposit them like their own leaf brick poos they can easily throw into the forest behind their house. We have a few rakes and a leaf blower. The leaf blower is nice because it can get the bulk of the work of gathering done for you and then all you have to do is rake the remaining refuse into piles you can shove into garden bins to dump in the forest.

Why has not technology caught up with the demand to remove leg hairs? I know there are laser treatments that are supposed to make hair removal permanent but I also know people who have spent the 2 grand required to do it and years later the hairs still fight their way back. We also have waxing which makes the need to shave less frequent. And of course there is Nair - the delightful chemical burn way of removing unwanted hairs. But as far as I know there is nothing that we have that makes leg hair removal painless and permanent. If I could only get at least a leg hair blower -- I wouldn't have to bend and shave blindly the places I no longer can see because of the planet orbiting my center region.

And one last thought on the matter - Not shaving is "green." It saves on many precious resources when you don't have to take longer showers to shave or create the steel in my 15 blade Gillette Ultra-Power-Almost-a-Government-Held-Military-Secret-Best-a-Man-Can-Get Platinum IV razor. And I'm pretty sure like with animals - leg hairs keep you warmer. So no more wasted physiological resources keeping you warm. We could all minimize our carbon footprint on the planet if we stopped shaving.

Ahh but in the end - I rake and remove leaves. And in the end I shave. Both unpleasant chores but both essential to good breeding. Hmmf.