Probably the Most Random Pedicure Story You Will Ever Read

If you've spent any time getting to know me, dear reader, you know that I'm not much of a glamour girl in real life. I'm rough and tumble, practical (perhaps to a fault), and I try very hard to to be wasteful. I only go for manicures and pedicures when I have a photo shoot, when I'm about to travel, and when I'm getting rewed. I work with needles and pins and glues and paints when I'm involved in projects, and fancy nails just aren't that practical when you're always messing with things that will damage the polish. I can't do gel manicures because my nails become frighteningly thin and take several months to grow back, and I can't do acrylics either. I just go bare unless I have to have my nails done.

I zipped to a new place near my day job over my lunch break one day before I headed to Arkansas. I had just under an hour to get my nails and eyebrows done. There was one other customer in the salon, but there were four or five technicians so it should have taken no time. I was tag teamed by three people, all working on my nails. One tech slipped away for lunch, so it was down to two. The gal who was working on my toes clipped too far into one of my cuticles, and it hurt like a son of a bitch. To stop the bleeding, she dabbed at it with nail polish remover. (Cupcake, it wasn't nail polish. It was blood.) That also hurt like a son of a bitch.I was bleeding and wincing and watching muted daytime television. I was out of there an hour and ten minutes after I arrived because they all took a break for lunch my nails needed to dry for a good 30 minutes before they could do my brows.

My cuticle was throbbing on the hurried walk back to my office. I thought the pain would go away by the end of the day since it was just a cuticle. Nope. My entire big toe hurt for a couple days, and I started developing a painful bruise and tight scab on the cuticle just in time for my Friday show. It hurt like hell but the show must go on. The next morning I got some ointment and bandaged up the toe until my Sunday morning photo shoot, and I kept the toe bandaged for almost two weeks. The bruise came and went, the scab opened on its own and the swelling went down. It still hurt to the touch and part of the toe was discolored for six weeks. It hurt to wear dancing shoes for several weeks. Just last week the last chunk of healing skin sloughed off the wounded cuticle area. The pain is totally gone and my toe looks normal.

I decided against Yelping about this new business and the pained toe. Why? Because they gave me an ear of corn at the end of my appointment. Yes, an ear of corn. An ear of fucking corn. I didn't ask for the corn. They were having a corn klatch as my nails were drying. They were still having their corn klatch as my eyebrows were being waxed. When I was finally free to go, I darted toward the door to pay and they offered me an ear of corn. (I missed my lunch, but I like my corn with butter and salt. I also don't eat random corn. I'm particular. I also don't eat microwaved foods.) I politely declined. They offered again, I said, "No, thank you." Then they forced a hot ear of plastic-wrapped and freshly microwaved corn into my hand along with a napkin because it was hot. I juggled the corn as I paid with plastic, and shuffled back to my job with the hot corn. My co-worker was puzzled when I entered with hot corn that I promptly dropped in the trash. "I just got my nails done. They cut my cuticle and gave me corn."

That unwanted corn kept me from giving their business a bad review and posting pictures of my healing toe. I wonder if that's a business tactic. "I'm sorry you were offended/hurt/displeased. Take this corn."