nailed it.

let me tell you about a particularly awkward trip to the nail salon that i recently took.  said salon experience was planned with my friend, emily.  i need to preface this trip with the fact that we did not get our manicures at a fancy luxury salon.  it was the sort of salon that offers "foo' nail" rather than "full nail."  and that's not racism; it's simply dialect.

anywho.  emily beat me to the salon.  when i arrived, the lady behind the desk already knew that i was going to get a manicure--she simply wanted to know whether i was going to get a traditional or shellac manicure (i went the shellac route, but it's not a critical piece of information for this story.  but i knew you were curious).  there were very few, if any, customers in the salon, so i assumed emily and i would be seated next to each other so we could gossip, gab, and simultaneously be paranoid that our nail girls were talking smack about us in some sort of asian tongue.  but no.  my technician led me right past the two chairs next to emily and into a completely separate room for my manicure.  any gossiping that was to be done that day would have to be performed through telepathy.  

strike one.

okay.  whatever.  i can deal.  i can always catch up with emily later.  so as i'm sitting in the naughty room soaking my fingernails, i decide to make smalltalk with the nail technician.  she, however, was not having it.  i got some one word responses out of her until she stopped responding at all.  well, screw you very much, nail lady.  fine.  i'm okay sitting in silence.  whatever.  i'll just watch the country music videos playing on the 900 inch big screen TV playing in the background.  and the irony of country music videos playing in an asian salon was not lost on me.  it reminded me of this scene from the classic kirstie alley hit, drop dead gorgeous:

a few minutes later, a male employee walked up the the 6,000 inch big screen TV and changed the channel to the history channel.  a documentary about the rise of hitler was playing.  there are few things more awkward than sitting in an asian nail salon watching a documentary about the rise of the arian race.  as i was nervously trying to avoid eye contact with every dark-haired, dark-eyed person in the room (for fear they thought i was a hitler sympathizer--i know.  i'm paranoid.), my nail technician's boobs started buzzing.  i should know, because her low-cut sweater was about six inches from my face.  she reached into her cleavage and pulled out her cell phone.  i swear to blog, i have never actually seen anyone store anything in their bra before.  a couple bucks, maybe, at a bar or something...but never anything as heavy and uncomfortable as a cell phone.  it was like a scene out of showgirls or something. this, by the way, is strike 2.

so buzzy boobs whips out her phone to (i assume) silence it.  but no.  she answers it.  and she does not use an uber friendly phone voice like i do to answer the phone.  she answers with a tone that clearly implies she is not to happy with whomever is on the other end of the line.  as she is berating the person on the other end of the line, she has begun to physically take out her aggression on my poor cuticles.  and because i hate all forms of confrontation, i don't bother to tell her that she is hurting me.  so i go back to staring at the hitler documentary while mentally going to my happy place in order to block the physical and emotional discomfort.  a short while later, she hangs up and i'm bleeding from two different cuts made whilst she was chatting.  but don't worry--she licked her thumb and wiped away the blood.  let me repeat.  dr. buzzy boobs wiped away my blood with her bare skin and saliva.  she then goes on to blame my small nail beds for the damage she caused.  "you have such small nail beds.  makes it hard to work."  thank you for literally adding insult to injury.  the only body small body parts a woman wants to hear she has are her waist and her pores.  strike 3, 4, and 5.

as i waited for my blood to clot, a rough and tough looking guy walked into the room and sat down at the chair directly behind the nail technician.  this was the poor soul on the other end of the cleavage phone.  nail girl shot daggers through her eyes at him when he walked in and muttered "you slept in."  mr. rough and tough didn't respond and the three of us sat there in awkward silence for far too long.  all of a sudden, without being provoked, the nail technician reaches into her cleavage (again!) and pulls out a wad of money.  at this point, i am reminded of the lyrics from one of my favorite disney movies, the little mermaid: "how many treasures can one cavern hold?"  without saying a word, rough and tough grabs the money and leaves.  you guys, did i just witness a drug deal?  or a pimp situation?  i don't even know what you would call something like that.  a pimping?  that must be it.  i witnessed a pimping!  should i have called someone?  the police?  the newspapers?  should i have made a citizen's arrest?  who am i kidding, that would have effed up my manicure.  as a wise woman once said, ain't nobody got time for that.  strike 6.

after a muchtooagressive arm massage, my salon trip from hell came to a close.  as i stood at the counter, trying to do mental math to figure a tip, i reviewed the events that just took place:

strike 1--seated in a different room than emily
strike 2--she procured a phone from her jugs
strike 3--makes mince meat of my cuticles
strike 4--probably gives me hepatitis or something via her saliva
strike 5--makes fun of my little nail beds
strike 6--a silent pimping takes place in front of me

after taking all of that into consideration, what do i do?  i over-tip her.  curse you, mental math!

strike 7.