Shed your winter woolies one and all!

I did it. I took the leap. The winter has broken me down so low that I figured if I took this desperate measure maybe, just maybe, it would trump that useless flabby excuse for a meteorologist, Punxsutawney Phil.

It was sort of a quick thought, but then it became somewhat of a superstitious obsession really. So, tonight I finally, for all of the people who are giving the old middle finger to Mother Nature, I did it...I shaved my legs.

I know, some will click feverishly to avoid reading further, most being of the male persuasion. Stick with me here. Let me esplaine you why Lucy might want to keep her winter layer, just as Ricky may don a beard. There are common reasons, as well as different reasons we females choose to keep a wooly coat, just like our brawny counterparts.

A man may grow a beard to look a little more rugged while chopping wood. A pair of Carhart chaps, a thick, plaid long-sleeved LL Bean Shirt and some shitkickers and you turn into Paul Bunion. The beard brings out your eyes and hides those little imperfections leftover from puberty.

We lady folk do not grow our leg hair, and occasionally armpit and nether-region hair (NO, no, no...stick with me, please, you've come this far) to feel more rugged. We don't do it so that you will look down at the space between sock and pant and think, "now that is a girl who knows how to get through a winter! I'd sure like to cuddle up in front of a roaring fire with her!" We know it won't bring our the color of our eyes, only the shock popping eyes of those that get a sneak peek. We know we can't get too close to a fire while in our natural state due to probable singeing of our entire lower half.

No, we know it's not something that will turn you on, which is also part of why we do it. But I get digress.

A man with a beard looks like he can fix things. He may have the handyman skills of Richard Simmons, but with a face full of hair, to us, you appear as though any leaks, outages, logs too large to spilt on our own, means you are the MAN for the job!

As woman with fur laden legs, and the rest, that I won't mention for fear of losing you, we too give off the appearance of someone with handyman skills. We may be better suited to more delicate jobs like making photo albums of holidays gone by, or trying out that new gluten-free, no-bake protein ball recipe. But for some reason we end up at an elderly neighbors house with a blowtorch in one hand and a Home Depot “How To” book in the other.

There are other reasons we, both buck and doe, choose to take a season off. To simply get a break from shaving. It's labor intensive, razors are expensive and frankly our skin just needs to be left alone!

After you get through the gross, and frankly hazardously prickly stage, it's all smooth sailing from there. Men can have scratchy beards, but most women's hair, during the growing season is long and quite soft. Certainly the look can be a turn off, but if one can get past that, the smoothness might be even better than the five minutes after using the Lady Shick Ultra. I mean, I have always associated this bizarre, and frankly quite infuriating phenomenon to my Irish heritage. Five minutes after I have shaved, towel dried and applied lotion (I have long gams so it's a labor intensive gig for me) I inevitably get the chills and a 1/4" of stubble immediately emerges from every pore that has just been stripped clean of all hair, and usually some skin as well. I literally grow a 5 O'Clock shadow within five minutes of a 20-minute maintenance protocol. Sometimes I will tell my husband "quick feel how soft, like right now while I'm in the bath," because I know the minute I emerge from the water I will take on the tactile resemblance of a fucking porcupine. "Come feel the silky smoothness that one would associate with a REAL woman," a well quaffed lady, a Brazilian model, or maid (they all look the same). I really do attribute that horrible, and quite frankly, libido killer of a trait to my Irish heritage. Could be the Finnish heritage too, not exactly smooth and supple peoples, the Irish, nor the Finns! We all have crosses to bear.

So remember men, we women need a break too. We need a winter without razor burn or stubble or cleaning out the bathtub that, which after we get through with resembles those magna doodles with that guys face and the little magnet on a red stick for you to give him a beard, mustache and eye brows. We too want to be warmer, to just be the hairy beasts we are so not encouraged to be, if only for a few months.

Have no fear, most of us, come spring will tidy up all our lady parts to your liking, while looking forward to seeing the face we haven't seen since "Movemeber."

In light of all this I am establishing a women's movement to grow hair for a cause to give the men some competition, which we all know they love. While they will continue to raise awareness of men's health issues, ours would be a fundraiser to protect beaver habitats far and wide. We shall call it "Beavember!"

Game on boys. GAME ON!