nail job

This weekend I'm going to participate in my fourth year at the charity event Yoga for Hope. It benefits the City of Hope Hospital, which is a bastion for research, recovery and treatment for a variety of diseases including cancer, AIDS, diabetes, and other life threatening diseases.

I got invited the first year by my bestie Claire, a breast cancer survivor and the keynote speaker the first year. I had such an amazing experience that when Claire then took on chairing the event, I continued to attend. Her fundraising group's color is blue, so I figured I would commemorate the weekend with blue toes and fingernails.

This is a big 'ole heap of exposition just so I can tell you about my experience in the nail salon tonight....

Wellllll, the person doing my toes was a dude. I really really try not to be judgemental about dudes working in the nail salons. I have had some seriously good mani/pedi's from men.  However. I was really editing in my head, trying not to be worried about how my toes would look.

First, he was wearing a mask. Not uncommon in a nail salon. They inhale so many fumes, it can be really really toxic.

But this was no ordinary mask. First, it was much more rigid, like the ones men sometimes wear in constructions sites.

And he had taken an industrial sized piece of elastic and stapled it to the sides of the mask about six times on each side with which to strap the mask to his head. Then, he had also stapled a ziploc baggie to the inside. And oh yes, it was Ziploc, you can tell by the red/blue seal that was folded over the edge of the mask.

Then, there was his manicure toolbox. It was a super-size of the regular one that the ladies usually have. His cotton was stored in a large container that used to hold bungee cords from home depot. How do I know? I have that container of bungees in the trunk of my car. His emory board was easily the size of a ruler.

I'm pretty sure instead of using the regular cuticle cutters he used some needle-nosed pliers. And when it came time to paint, his giant man-paws were holding the little paintbrush like it was a very tiny pencil, but then instead of even paint strokes, he was making these little stabby motions toward my toenails. I was a little worried, to say the least.

stab, stab, stab.

stab, stab, stab.

He was just so... stabby.

The end result was pretty OK. The lady who did my hands did give my feet a very close stare-down and seemed to deem them satisfactory after only a minor touch up. Overall, not the best pedicure I've ever had. But Bear-Paw-Magee did the best he could with his giant mitts.

I mean, if you had grabbers like that, could you do this?

patchouli.

aka barfouli. aka stinkouli. aka gagouli. aka worse-than-old-lady-perfume-ouli.

I apologize to anyone that might wear the stench perfume patchouli, but the malodor feels to me like someone hot boxed some incense in my nose and the hot box was made of stabby things up through my nostrils to my brain. And for some reason 99.99999% of the people that wear patchouli put so much on that you can smell it from about a mile away.

granted, any perfume that you can smell from over 20 feet away is an affront.  I think this every time I pass an old lady that has been wearing the same perfume her whole adult life and now can no longer smell it/takes a bath in it. But for some reason, when someone has slathered themselves in patchouli (as happened this evening) I feel as though I am being assaulted.

Tonight this woman was wearing being owned by patchouli and it was all I could do to be around her without gagging. I tried as politely as possible to keep my hand around my nose so I would smell my own hand rather than her, and also kept as far away as possible, taking care to hold my breath around her and then make sure to breathe OUT first before breathing IN after I had left her general vicinity (and by general vicinity I mean a 25 foot radius) so that any smell that had snuck up in my nose might be expelled before I had to breathe in.

seriously, I want to tell anyone that thinks patchouli smells nice. just don't. If you must enjoy it, buy the incense sticks and burn out in your yard/patio/balcony/wooded area. But PLEASE, PLEASE keep it away from me. It smells so fucking foul that it makes me want to run away from you. And you might be a very nice person.

gahhhh I feel violated...