By Alan Karickhoff, Swimming World College Intern
The air was thick with steam. Clouds of hot air floated by the ceiling in the windowless room. All twelve showers ran with boiling water keeping the room warm and our toes from freezing. This team shower was more than just a rinse off after practice. Each shower pressure was adjusted to a point just strong enough to clear each razor of its shaving cream, but not so strong that it sprayed everywhere.
Men with shaving cream-covered legs, and backs for some, scattered the floor of the shower room under the falling hot water. It was the Dickinson College men’s swim team prepping for the upcoming weekend, their 2016 Centennial Conference Championships, two days away. It was my last excuse, being a senior, to shave my legs.
I finished up my left leg. I lathered my right leg with a handful of shaving cream, grabbed a razor, and worked my way up my leg, all the way to the Speedo line. With my fingers I followed every move with the razor, making sure no stubble slowed my fingers. The knees were tough with each hair sticking out a different way among the many ridges of the knee cap. While visibly hairless, stubble could still be felt so I couldn’t leave the knee quite yet. Straightening, twisting, and bending my knee, I was determined to clear the landscape.
Ankles proved to be another challenge. Strange curves, dips and bulges made sliding a razor over the area treacherous. Calves, however, took no more than a few seconds. Smooth and hairless. No cuts this time. The five blade razors do the trick. Hairless legs showed old scars from the previous few years of shaving parties. I still had two arms, my chest, and my abs left to finish. Despite having a nearly hairless back, a teammate quickly ran a blade over my back to remove the thin top layer of skin.
“Can you get my back?” Austin asked Mitchell.
Mitchell responded hesitantly because of the forest covering Austin’s back, “Uh, yeah I guess if you can get my back.” Mitchell conceded when he realized he had the second hairiest back on the team. It was an award most obvious at this time of the year. The less hairy swimmers paired up with each other, carefully gliding razors over each other’s backs.
Slowly, one by one, each guy finished their legs, working all the up to the suit line, the rest to be finished on one’s own. A flexible abdomen allowed myself to clear the forest of hair up my hamstrings just under my glutes. Although covered from hips to just above the knee during the swim meet, any hair sticking through the suit could be one’s downfall.
As the hot water ran warm and then cold, guys picked up their pace, sliding their blades at risky speeds up their inner thighs. Razor burn started to show on their legs where cream wasn’t properly applied or old razors weren’t replaced by new razors. Hair was tangled in the drain waiting to be swiped up by a paper towel. Forty-four razors, 15 bottles of shaving cream, and six small cuts later, the team was ready to make the trek to the caf for dinner.
Hats, coats, gloves, hoods, and boots found their way onto our bald bodies. Sweatpants climbed easily up my legs, nothing slowing them down. My legs felt cold, bald, and almost numb. Sweat pants felt like how I imagine an Egyptian cotton sheet set with a thread count of 1500 feels when one slides into bed.
Following dinner, I made my way back to the Goodyear apartment complex with four other guys on the team that lived with me. We still had hidden hair in the hard to hit places around our knees, ankles, chest, and arm pits. With only two bathrooms between the five of us it was a fight for space to make the additional touch ups. There’s always at least one guy on deck before champs warm ups with one unshaved armpit, and this was the time to make sure I cleared every isolated hair.
I tossed the sink faucet on hot, grabbed my razor, and stripped. Hair on the knuckle of my pinky finger on my left hand? Swipe. Gone. Hair hidden below my chin on my Adam’s apple? Swish. Gone. Hair poking out just below my right nipple. Whiz. Gone.
Soon, within the week, stubble will appear. In-grown hairs will appear. Razor burn will become more apparent both in feeling and in appearance. Three days of heavenly slickness, and a couple weeks of scratchy emerging hairs. I will miss the excuse to shave my legs once a year.
Pretty good article last picture triggers horrible memories though