The thought didn’t occur to me until play practice that evening.

There I was, downstage where my scene was taking place, saying my line when it suddenly hit me. Not like a ton of bricks: that was way too cliché, and I thought I deserved something more traumatizing than that. Perhaps like the weight of the world Atlas had to endure. Pushing down and down upon my mind. Squishing it like one would squeeze Play-doh.

I forgot to shave my armpits this morning.

GAH!

I plastered my arms to my side. Of course my T-shirt had extremely short-sleeves, so if I lifted my arms it would be extremely noticeable as my fellow cast members gawked at that black fuzz sticking out. Its poking out would not only be observed, but I would be judged and permanently scarred by this incident.

Find a jacket, dumb-s***.

I needed to mask the furry horror under my arms. How could I have not felt the prickly stems this morning when I woke up? Why were those black trees so well at hiding until the most inopportune moment? And worst of all… just how many times did I lift my arms up today?

“Alyssa?” said Jonathan, my friend and the stage manager of the production. He peered up at me. “It’s your line. Wade just said his.”

“Line,” I croaked, pinning my elbows in to my side.

He said it, and I recited it, even though I already knew it, and I went back to worrying about my armpits as my scene ended.

Okay, so my faux leather jacket was in the room. The problem is it was on the chair I had just vacated before the start of my scene, and now I was situated in one on the other side of the line of chairs. I shivered. Good Lord. Nice going.

Just go get it, I told myself.

No, then it was obvious that something was wrong.

I crossed my arms over my chest as the pits perspired with persistence. The wetness seeped in between the rows of trees in the forest of fur. With all this happening, I couldn’t bear not having my jacket anymore. I darted across the row of chairs and people in the chairs, all my fellow cast members wondering what the hell I was doing, until they saw me grab my jacket and lost interest.

Or were they looking away because they snuck a peek at my armpits? Oh my God, they totally saw. They were disgusted with me.

I slumped back to the seat, pulling the jacket on. The interior masked the wetness and black hairs protruding from that special spot. Glancing around, I hugged myself.

Glad I avoided that awkward conversation: “Hi, Alyssa, have you not shaven?” “Why no, I haven’t.”

Wow, seriously? Did people actually bring that stuff up in life? Would it honestly matter if they saw the hair? Most people had the decency to ignore that… right?

I wore the jacket the rest of the rehearsal.