THE Talk

My son tells me the other day that he has some unwanted hair that he needs removed.

I’m like, you’re 6, you don’t have any unwanted hair little dude. He says, ‘my legs are really hairy’!

Uh, oh.

Umm.

Yeah.

I knew that some day I would be having the sex talk, but I honestly never thought about having the leg shaving talk. Holly crap, talk about unintended consequences. How do you explain leg shaving to a 6 year old?

I looked at my wife – she was no help. In fact, she was all hunched over because she was laughing so hard.

The list of excuses cyclists use to shave their legs roles through my head.

-Makes it easier to clean road rash – true – can’t use this one, my son falls off his bike more than I do so he will want me to bust out the razor for him.
-Makes massages less painful – I don’t know, I don’t get massages – and my son knows it so I can’t use that one.

-Makes you faster – true – I saw some research that shaving leg hair saves 2 seconds over 40 kilometers. No, that is so ridiculous I can’t use that one.

-Then there is my favorite – chicks dig it. Probably not true, but people tend not to question it because they don’t know either. Anyway, I can’t use that one – my son likes chicks beyond his years. He would be all over it.

-Then there is the real truth – well because everyone else (everyone else as in bike racers) does it. Yup, can’t tell a kid that you do something because everyone else is doing it.

Hum,

Yeah,

Well,

I think my wife is crying. She is definitely having a hard time breathing.

So fortunately on this particular day my legs were very similar to a cactus. Probably about a 50 grain sand paper if you will. Yeah it had been a day or two or eight.

Thinking quick I pull up my pant leg. Here, feel, dad has leg hair!
He feels it. ‘Wow Dad, you have a ton of hair’…
...
...
...
...

Sorry, I just had to relish that. It isn’t like I will hear it again. At least not with that honesty.

So yeah, crisis narrowly averted for now.