Did Someone say "Toenails?"
Ha. This is sort of funny, because I just had a toenail incident this past Friday! At my local manicure place around the corner. I hadn't been in a really long time. But my beautiful ($4) pedicure that I got in Thailand was starting to wear off, and I found that I had a free afternoon. So hey, why not treat myself to a pedicure?!
This past week has been hellish. There were meetings at church, open house at school on Wednesday until 9:30, Maggie's dance dress rehearsal on Thursday until 8:30, and then the weekend was looking like it was going to be one activity after another.
But on Friday....ahhhh....sweet Friday, Maggie had gone for her very first sleepover at a classmate's house. So Kevin and I had the night to ourselves -- for the first time in a long time. And I planned to enjoy every minute I had. I called the pedicure place ahead of time, to make sure the lady I like was there. Tina. She was the one who did this to my toes. I like her. I was assured that I had an appointment at 5pm.
I got there at 5 PM on the dot. And saw another woman being escorted by Tina to the pedicure chair. Aghhhhhh! This did not bode well. But Tina assured me it would only be a few minutes. So, there I sat in the uncomfortable chairs, waiting for my turn. My seat mate was an 18 month old boy who was apparently half pterodactyl -- judging from the ear piercing screeches he was making every few seconds. What? An 18 month old boy? What was he doing in a nail place, you might be asking.... Yeah, I was wondering that too. But the mom didn't have time to actually watch him. She was concerned with the bright red fingernail polish she was instructing the manicurist to apply to her 7 year old daughter's nails. The mom, herself was getting her acrylic nails replaced, and she did this while holding ANOTHER baby under one of her arms. Yep. Three kids under 7 in the nail place. Lovely.
After 1/2 an hour of waiting, I was ushered to the foot soak. And once my feet were in there, I really couldn't leave. Even though I was tempted. Repeatedly. Because the mom of three kids was there the WHOLE time. And the baby boy was squawking and then...then...the mom got a call on her cell phone. Which apparently she HAD to take. So she put the baby down. Down on the nasty floor where everybody's toenail clipping are and god knows what else. And then the baby, who must have been about 8 months old, proceeded to crawl with the speed of a racehorse over to my foot bath. I was sure she was going to drown herself in it, and it would all be over. But the mom suddenly looked up from her phone conversation and noticed what was going on. She bellowed out "Natalie! Get back here!" (Yeah, nice, huh? The kid had my name, so I got to hear it yelled repeatedly during my "relaxing" time at the manicurist) And the baby, who was a total escape artist, turned toward her mother, giggled, and slap slap slap across the tile floor, edged her way closer to certain death in my massaging foot spa. Finally the mom got up, and with the phone held to one ear on her shoulder, came and scooped her daughter up with the the other arm and took her back to her seat.
All of this was commented on loudly by the screeching pterodactyl boy in the seating area. To her credit, the 7 year old girl with the inappropriate nail polish was totally behaving herself. So anyway, the mom sat down, put her nails back out to have them touched up, and put the baby back down. And little baby Natalie...you guessed it...headed right back towards me. slap slap slap.
I could go on. But I will not. You get the idea. I didn't even wait for my toenails to dry. As soon as she slapped the polish on, I was out of there. Ughhhh. WHY would a person take three young kids with them to the manicurist? Why?
In happier news, Kevin and I had a wonderful dinner out. (With the cell phone in my pocket the whole time, just in case Maggie had to call from her sleep over --which she did not) We had crepes, and then we walked over to the local Indian Movie Theater which has just started showing American films, and watched Star Trek. I have never even seen one episode of Star Trek in my life. And I watched one of the movies with Kevin one time because he couldn't believe I had never seen Star Trek (we watched the one with the Whales and it was SOOOOOOO stupid) But anyway, I knew that Kevin really wanted to see the movie and he had been working when his friends all went to see it together, so I suggested that we go see it on our romantic date night together. I honestly thought he was going to swoon when I suggested it. Ha. But, I must admit, it was a totally fun movie. Also, it didn't hurt that the guys in the movie were really cute. Way cuter than William Shatner EVER was.
Comments
Don't give up! My next pedicure was last Monday, the holiday, and I got to sit there (in child free silence) and watch Ellen for the first time. WOW it was funny. I laughed so hard I cried!
Glad you had a good date night! Paul would love it if I went and saw "Star Trek" with him.....Maybe someday!
A while ago, I went to a fancy salon (instead of my usual cheap beauty college place) simply for that spa experience. And I got a good cut. But I didn't like my hairdresser--she was snooty. And she wasn't gentle with the brush when she dried my hair. Which doesn't always feel GREAT but it shouldn't HURT. Maybe she just wasn't skilled but the way she was working it more seemed like she was in a hurry and didn't care if it hurt. AND ANOTHER THING: she kept me waiting 45 minutes. I think a lot of salons do this--take walk-ins even if they have someone scheduled, just to keep the chairs filled. But it was another thing that annoyed me and made me not want to go back.
At the beauty college, there's no waiting and they really really want to do a good job: their grade depends on it. Of course you're sitting in a warehouse-like room with about 30 other people but hey, you can't have everything.
Whoops, that turned into a whole blog entry, Sorry about that.
To conclude: loved the post, loved the mini-update on you, Maggie, Kevin, and your toes.