I had so much fun writing about the three things I learned last week (Gravity Shmavity), that I thought I would make it a regular post. I found it interesting that this week everything I learned happened at the nail salon.
Number 1: I have a mustache! I went to have my eyebrows waxed. So I lay down on the table with that thick plastic cover on it, and the woman is standing over me closely examining my face. All I can feel is her hot breathe and think about what could she have possibly eaten to garner that smell. She asks “You want lip too?” Ah…”no, just eyebrow.” She walks over in silence and gets her popsicle sticks full of hot wax and the, what feels like, medical tape to rip off my eye lids. After she finished ripping off the hot wax, she went back over to get her tweezers, or so I thought. I had my eyes closed, laying there stiff as a board, uncomfortable, as if I was in a medical examining room waiting her to give me a shot. She comes back and puts more wax on, but this time on my upper lip, and then just says to me “no charge.” In my head I am screaming “Seriously? Did you just do that?” But I say nothing. I’m not sure why, I am usually more vocal. But in these kind of situations, I just kind of go with it. Don’t want to cause a stir or any conflict, or have them start talking about me in Korean…they do a good job at this nail salon and good nail salons are hard to find. I justified what she did was an act of kindness, as I realized that she was doing me favor. She is the only person that was nice enough to tell me (in her own way) that my mustache was so dark and offensive that even she couldn’t stand it. How could I argue with that? I think she’s my new best friend.
Number 2: I should never go cheap on a french manicure. Every once in awhile I don’t feel like paying the extra money for a french manicure, but I like the look. So I thought I had beat the system by getting the more neutral tone polish, just no white stripe along the top of the nail. This time though, I picked a more flesh tone color versus my normal pink. When she was done, I held up my hands to admire what a great job she had done. But much to my horror, it looked like my skin had overgrown past the ends and I now had 10 perfectly uncircumcised fingers. I immediately plunked down my $6 and paid for the french.
Number 3: Pedicures make me appreciate my job. It’s been awhile since I got a pedicure, and as you may recall from my previous post, I certainly needed one (just ask my daughter). I sit in the chair and shamfully put my feet up on the paper towel as the woman closely examines the bottom of my feet. She looks up and asks “spa?” Which translates to mean that I will need to pay extra, because she needs to use the pedi-sandblaster to take off the 1/4 inch of dead skin from my heels and from the balls of my feet. “Yes, yes, of course…can I put them in the water now?” I didn’t want the woman in the next chair to see my feet. Well that was until I saw hers…at least all my toes point in the same direction.
So off she goes to get all her tools, including the handheld cheese grater she needs to shred the dead skin off. As she is filing down my feet, all I can think is thank goodness she has glasses because we might have an OSHA claim here, and thank god that I have an office job, because I don’t think I could ever stomach this kind of work.