ShupFace: Double Dare

(The D stands for Dare)

I’m a stone’s throw away from having my experimental method perfected and the beetroot dunking ready to begin. The only problem is that the stone is too heavy for me to throw. I’m thinking I’ll just grab a smaller stone, or, to keep with the baptism metaphor - opt for a sprinkling over full submersion.

In the meantime, I’m offering an opportunity for a redemption dare. I feel it’s warranted given the length of time Tom has been waiting for me to get my beetroot boiling behind into action. If Tom chooses to, he can dare me anything according to the rules without it counting towards our tally competition.

We at ShupFace (that is Jono and I) are very scientific. It has been determined that the current dare (posed by Jono and accepted by moi) shall be postponed until such time as extensive research can be carried out. The research will endeavour to determine the optimum ratio of beetroot to water in combination with various methods of heating and/or super-heating.

The current estimated time-frame for these scientific experiments overlaps quite conveniently with the school holidays. We ask that you exercise patience and restraint in these matters.

Beetrooting should not be undertaken on a whim.

In regards to Dare 2.

I will bathe in beetroot provided you can demonstrate a feasible method for obtaining a suitable amount of juice.

$100 worth of tinned beetroot =/= feasible.

There are two stories which act as precursors to this dare. The first was Tom’s baptism. The second inspiration was a recent staffroom conversation about someone’s salad (yes, teachers are boring). This led me to reflect about a time I witnessed an unnamed close friend, who is a girl, drop her family’s bucket of beetroot on their kitchen floor. Ceilings, cupboards, floor, and my face and clothes were not spared from a collateral splashing. It was quite difficult to clean the ceiling to the point where all the stains had become invisible to the naked eye. The stain on my skin was very obvious, judging by the laughter of my less-than-empathetic company.

So, when I realised I was long overdue to challenge Tom with the next dare, the logical progression from these two events was a beetroot baptism:

The Dare

Tom, I dare you to completely submerge yourself in beetroot juice for a full minute.

Qualifiers
You may baste, rather than submerge, if said juice is of high expense or low availability, but you must endure the consequences for at least one stained outing (pun totally intended). ‘Outing’ here implies a public event outside your home. Soccer training, Uni classes, or a walk through a suburban shopping mall/street/plaza are great examples. Head-covering of any description is outlawed, but you may wear as much clothing on the rest of your body as you like. (If you don’t understand why, you haven’t fully appreciated the awesomeness of this dare. Further reading will help)

An optional suggestion is that you let me tape “shupface.com” on your back so it remains unstained, thus providing the chosen event to be stained with some shameless self-promotion, not to mention alliteration!

This is a slightly delayed announcement. On Saturday night, Tom waxed “SF” into my chest. Or more technically, he took SF out of my chest. You can dwell on the phrase ‘out of’ and cringe, if you wish.

It’s taken from then until now for me to find the time to write about it. Half-hearted apologies.

It’s also taken until now for the various blood spots to disappear and the skin to stop hurting. I hope I don’t hurt Tom’s feelings in this, but it must be said: You do not have the (spiritual?) gift of waxing.

Tom spent some time before the waxing session reading the instructions booklet. This made it easier for me to relax and trust I was in pseudo-professional hands. It turned out my sense of security was also pseudo-security: I had been thoroughly lulled. It turns out that the part of Tom’s brain that reads and the part that plans actions are able to operate completely independent of each other. It’s quite remarkable.

First Blood
There I lay, on Tom’s bedroom floor, shirtless, bashful and hesitant. My chest was already burning from the over-microwaved wax liberally applied moments earlier. Tom grabs one end of the glob (soon to become the vertical line of the F).

“‘Pull the skin taught with one hand, and with the other pull upwards, against the growth of the hair, in one, quick movement.”

Well, he got one thing right, he pulled upward. The only problem was that he pulled upward in 3 quick movements, with a several second gap (which actually is a very long time) between pulls 1 and 2.
My experience was that it’s actually not the initial rip that hurts the most. It’s roughly one half to one full second after the wax comes off, that your skin finally figures out what just happened and decides to punish the brain for letting it happen. That’s the worst part.

Unforseen Consequences
When I accepted the dare, I really only saw as far as enduring the pain of the waxing itself as the manly challenge. Surely it would have been obvious that having my shirt off at any point in the next few weeks will lead to questions, jovial comments or ridicule.
I am not looking forward to wearing a rash-shirt at the indoor pool at the gym. People will wonder what I’m hiding!

Final Thought
I’m glad I finally got it over and done with. I better get points for this…
I demanded full points since Tom did such a bad job that it added unnecessary pain. He didn’t seem too persuaded.

I’m almost considering doing the rest of it, just so it’s even… not.

I hope to upload photo evidence soon.

I accept!

I will wait a week or so, just to let it get even manlier before the due date. It will add to the effect.

I envisage ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots, possibly ‘during’ as well - so long as they don’t portray me crying like a pansy. I intend not to cry, and hopefully not even make a big fuss. I will probably shout a little bit, just for the sadistic enjoyment of whoever inflicts it upon me.

That brings me to my request for clarification of the conditions:

Must I do it myself? Or may someone do it to me?
Do I have to buy all the stuff? Where? (Let’s just pretend I know nothing about this?)

Proposed date: Next Monday night.

It’s on like Donkey Kong at 8 30pm on the 18th of February.

Due to unforseen circumstances the event has been postponed to later this week.

Stay tuned!

To kick things off I’ve decided to dare Jono. Having ascertained that there are no “darebacks” (daring someone to do something they have previously dared you to do) I have decided upon a suitable dare:

Jono has to wax SF into his chest hair and photos will be required.