tickling the pedicurist

My mom called me out of the blue and asked what I was doing for the afternoon…

“How about a foot job and some Thai food?”… Who was I to turn down such a random invitation.

From the sheer volume of nail salons in St. Louis, I’ve always assumed that our Vietnamese-American population was thriving and / or manicures and pedicures could be liked to heroin use among middle-aged women.

I trekked out to the wasteland which is the superficially affluent western suburbs of St. Louis, and unfortunately my mom’s adopted zip code of preference. We headed down the street to K-Nails – a little teal slathered cube tucked inside one of those characterless strip malls.

Within the shop was a small army of attractive Asian women, all with psychedelically colored claws attending to a broad range of women with little bits of foam stuffed between their digits.

I couldn’t help but feel like the wayward dame stumbling into a smokey backroom men’s poker club.

I got shot my share of looks, but mom was apt to vocally announce that “this is my son, he’s never had a pedicure before”. The hens giggled, decompressed and went back to their Cosmo’s and Midwest Livings.

The best way to explain the “pedicure” spa station would be to imagine the lard-ass engineers at Lazy Boy and the tub designers at Jacuzzi collaborating on a project. My feet soaked in perfumed bubbling water, while I fussed with the massage remote control and contemplated the electrical shock risks.

My footologist went to work on my feet – trimming my cuticles and running what resembled a cheese slicer over the 32 year-neglected leg stumps I call feet.

Despite their rough finish – I’m ticklish as all get out and couldn’t help but giggle through a lot of the procedure – which, made my attendant giggle… and my mother shoot me condescending looks to suggest: “Oh quit being a baby”.

Mom vanished to the back of the shop to have her eyebrows yanked outa here head while I fretted over color. I wasn’t as intruged by having color applied to my toenails as much as I was the “NAMES” of the colors on the bottles…. Mom settled on “Taupless Showgirl”… Tempting, but considering my new love for flip-flops and lack of polish remover at home, opted for “clear”.

I spent the rest of the day admiring my new feet and being a little self conscious at the varying hues of lavender the pearlescent finish on my nails would throw in different light.

I’m far from becoming a foot fetishist – but the experience was kinda nice and relaxing.

I’m far from blogging too.