This week I actually got to play an away-game. Well, it was an interview with a company that actually spent money to fly me from San Antonio to DC to take part in a 2-hour interview. I have no idea how that turned out, but I did learn a little something along the way – specifically, I like saying the word “manicure,” but not “pedicure” so much, and I think “mani-pedi” sounds ridiculous and is probably one of the last things in the world I would engage myself in.
I came this revelation, as has happened so often during my Texas exile, because Shadow suggested that before I go to the interview I get my nails done. If you’ve been paying the slightest bit of attention here for the last 20 months you should have registered by now that Shadow is often correct about these things and so I’ve grown to grudgingly accept that I should just try whatever it is and hope for the best.
As Shadow is acting as my job-search consultant these days and doing a tremendous job I might add, I found myself sitting awkwardly in front of an elderly Asian woman who spoke almost no words of English that I could understand. And while she made disgusted-sounding gurgling noises like she wanted to be ill at the site of my hands that have been untouched by trained professionals for more than 4 decades, I was left to smile that strange little “I-don’t-know-what-you’re-saying-but-I’ll-keep-smiling-anyway” smile and looking around the mostly vacant establishment.
My worst fear was realized when she brought out what looked like an orange juicer filled with sudsy water and made gestures toward it that indicated I should put my hand in. I recited in my head the following litany, “Please, God, don’t let this water be warm…”
As I did this she grabbed my other hand with roughly the patience you have with a four-year old who has repeatedly grabbed and used things at the same time that they are not supposed to grab and use at the same time – like honey, syrup and glitter.
So, with my arm twisted at precisely the angle that doctors use to purposely dislocate joints, she proceeded and I discovered that the nice thing about a manicure is that where you are likely not ambidextrous with those tiny little scissors, someone else does not have to be. And so for the first time ever, my nails were clean, trimmed, filed and buffed without the slightest trace of blood or the need for adhesive bandages or peroxide.
I was able to sit there and engage with the TV which was conveniently on a sports station. As the … I’m not sure what to call this woman, a nailer, I guess - had no direct communication link to me other than jerking my arm one way or another, I didn’t feel obligated to carry on the conversations that normally happen at barbers. She didn’t ask me how I’d like my nails (pointy like a talon); or if I wanted block or taper (like I give a damn what the back of my head looks like – I can’t see it!). She did her thing and I did mine.
And the lady sitting behind us, she did hers. Namely, she started to giggle.
My grand-matronly Asian friend looked up from my nails and I looked down from my TV and we both wordlessly said to each other with our eyes, “what the fu…” and we turned as one to the woman in the chair. She was getting a pedicure, which seemed mostly to involve her grimacing in an oddly blue-film kind of way at the young man giving her feet the kind of attention normally reserved for adolescent boys their first time out with a double clasp bra strap. And she just kept giggling. It was a far cry from the “When Harry Met Sally” scene in the restaurant, but she seemed to be enjoying herself immensely when she noticed us staring, and simply said, “it tickles.”
And so I sat, 10 minutes later, with my feet in a small pool of water getting the barnacles scrubbed off my heels and thinking, “mani-pedi” is still the stupidest word ever.
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