Put Your Foot Down!

The door jingled with small bells when I walked through it.  Everyone looked up to stare.  I stood awkwardly waiting for someone to say something.  Finally, a voice came from behind the dust mask of one of the little Vietnamese girls who was vigorously scrubbing an older woman’s heel.

“You have pedi appointment at 11?” she asked.  “Yes.” I replied.  “Choose yow colow!” she instructed in her very thick Vietnamese accent.

Alrighty then.  I found the wall of polish and studied them for a few minutes.  I’m a fan of very dark polish right now and although I did consider asking for the Canucks hockey stick logo for every toe, I settled for a dark purple that looks more like black.

With my chosen nail polish clutched safely, I sat in the seating area to wait my turn.  A few minutes later I was told to “put feet in watow”.  I’m sure they don’t mean to but the instructions were kind of barked at me.  It’s probably due to the language barrier, but it did put me off right away.  I don’t like to be ordered and if there was a smile I couldn’t see it behind the mask.

I looked around at the other women having manicures and pedicures.  They all seemed very happy with the service they were receiving; some were talking and laughing with the girls working on their nails.  Ok, so it’s me then.  Lighten up, Bonnie.

“Foot up!” she barked.  She startled me so much that I think I splashed her a little as I jerked my foot out of the water.  Oh dear, this is not starting out well.  My pedicurist worked quickly, too quickly in my opinion, on my feet.  Every so often she would start to speak and I would lean forward a bit but it was always in Vietnamese to one of the other girls working beside her.  They would laugh together and then she would continue working on my toes.  Are they laughing at the shape of my feet or that ugly little toe of mine, I wondered.

“You wan flowow?”

“What? Oh. A flower?  No. No, thank you.” I stammered.

Forget asking for blue and green hockey sticks, I thought.  We just don’t have a good flow happening here.

When it was all over, (in record time) my toes looked pretty but my wallet had a considerable chunk missing.  At least she didn’t add those callous eating fish to my soaking water.  Ew.

The next time my toes need attention I think I will save my money and soak, scrub and manicure them myself.  I may even paint little hockey sticks on each toe.