Hairless Joe Jackson

over a year ago, i started the process of systematically removing as much hair from my body as possible:

i had a few sessions of laser hair removal on my legs, and it went just fine every time. then i had super bad luck: the last time i went in, my legs started feeling very tingly directly after. all night, it got more and more painful. i used a topical analgesic, but by the next morning they looked sorta like this:

gross, right? i know! weeks later, and it wasn't getting much better. i went through this truly terrible stage of healing where the scabs were all itchy and it was intolerable. i had to cut a walk in the park short because i needed to go home, take my pants off and claw at my scabby skin.

when they finally "healed" my legs looked like this:

so i went to a dermatologist. first, he gasped. then, he took pictures. then, he told me to look on the bright side, at the good luck in all of this: i could easily go to a costume party as some sort of tiger or striped cat:

thanks, doc! 

anyway, it's still looking pretty awful, and i've been worried about anyone seeing my legs ever again and asking me why they are all strange looking:

so, i decided to go tanning. it was...weird. the room i was escorted to had what looked suspiciously like a punched in hole in the door:

on the opposite side, there was a patched over hole in the wall:

but i decided i didn't need to know what the hell was going on. i hopped into the bed, and went at it:

for ten entire minutes! i went back several times, and though my legs are still stripey, at least now i'm one of those people who go tanning, which is some sort of thing:

besides, if the stripes never go away, i can turn myself into one of those cat people from the hunger games series: