LHS
I’m going for the writer’s version of cheap applause when I say this: coffee is great any time, but never so good as when you’re fighting off the effects of a previous evening’s lack of cocktail discretion. With that thought, I filled up my American Invasive Surgery Association Mug (motto: we give new meaning to the term "inside joke") with whatever was in the pot and sat down to read the morning paper.
I got to reading about the great plagues of the 20th century—polio, AIDS, cancer, daytime talk shows—and came across the greatest of them all: Leg Hair Static. Apparently, this is a more widely-spread problem than anyone ever imagined. It’s the Truth: one in four Americans surveyed has, at some point in their life, experienced Leg Hair Static (LHS for short).
I can only imagine the personal hells through which LHS sufferers go. Clingy sweatpants, charged underwear and a large following of baboons are just a few of the horrors associated with LHS. Imagine a beach, where the corpulent tourists are gathered with their sandals and white socks—every leg a bare one. Two LHS-sufferers get too close and ZAP!, some toddler gets blasted sky-high, pail full of wet sand one way, little plastic shovel the other.
This explains why women (being the more sensitive of the genders) shave their legs. They obviously seek to avoid any LHS conflicts with each other or the less sensitive of the genders, namely guys named Purvis who own pickup trucks and drink too much Malt Liquor. It also explains why some athletes, especially swimmers, divers and bodybuilders, shave their entire bodies. I can see Greg Louganis getting yanked out of a Triple Groin Twist or Flying Wallaby (those are names of actual dives, I swear) by some odd electric emanations from the Russian judge.
This growing problem should keep the depilatory people in business for a while until some hope if found for our unfortunates. For the time being, there are just the standard preventative measures. Let’s pray that our scientists do something soon for the sufferers of this tragic syndrome. And let’s hope it doesn’t spread to some guy’s hairy back.