I'm sorry.
I really am.
I am not trying to be rude, but I know it comes off that way
when I don't respond to what you're saying to me.
You see, I have a hard enough time understanding people in
my own neighborhood, from my own state, from my own region. You think that Newman's Own Organic Coffee
commercial is bullshit? I can speak and
understand and even translate Maine, Cambridge, Southie, some New York, a bit of Long Island, and a fraction of Mumbles
Menino.
But I cannot understand a word you're saying to me in the
nail salon, and I'm wicked, wicked sorry about that. So I nod and smile and look retarded.
Look, I've only gotten one pedicure and two manicures in my
entire life and both happened within the last ten weeks, and the only reason I
went back for the manicure was because the nail polish the woman put on me was
like body armor - It had to be surgically removed. The second manicure left me with four
bleeding fingers and minus enough skin to almost need grafts, probably because
I was so skittish I couldn't stop moving. It wasn't until I removed that polish
myself that I tried to take off the toenail polish that had been on for weeks
and weeks. Uh oh. More body armor.
So I am faced with a choice:
Let the toenails grow out (what are we looking at, a year or so?) or
agree to go with my daughter to the nail salon run by some of the nicest people
in the world. I just cannot understand a
frigging word they are saying to me.
And I feel like an asshole.
Actually, I feel like a double asshole because I cannot
understand the directions they're giving me, and I have only had one pedicure,
so I have no idea what I getting into here.
I can't even help these people out by memory.
Truly, all I want is the old polish removed and maybe some
new stuff, removable stuff, put on.
When the poor girl sees my feet, she is horrified. She tries to assure me everything will be all
right and that I need the whole routine pedicure. I don't know what the whole routine is, but I
hate to have my feet touched, so there is no way I'm going through that process
a second time. The first time wasn't so
bad, but it's just not for me. She says
something like, "Your feet are all red.
They are dry. Soak
them." Soak them I understand,
especially since she is filling the tub in front of me with warm water.
Okay, okay, I'll play along.
"But I don't want a pedicure," I remind her, "I just want
the old polish taken off and new polish put on.
That's it."
After scraping and buffing and surgically removing the old
polish, the sweet girl again tries to start a pedicure. "No, no," I insist. She starts doing something that I'm sure
feels wonderful to someone who doesn't have nerve damage in her feet, and I
start flinching. The girl looks up at
me, baffled. I wince, shrug my
shoulders, and simply say, "Sorry…"
Then come the nail clippers.
Ohholyfuckingshit, she's going to
cut my nails. "No, really it's
all rIAYAIYAIYAI!" Shitalmighty,
she's cutting my nails. She's cutting my
nails. She's cutting my nails. I am gripping the arm rests until the blood
completely leaves my hands and lower arms.
I swear I can feel metal gouging into the skin around my toes. I know in my brain that she isn't clipping my
flesh, but it's what the nerve endings are sending to my brain receptors. I have to tell myself, "She's a
professional, you idiot, stop being a psychopath."
Ah, done. That's
nice, that's nice. I smile and bob my
head.
Then comes the truly horrifying sentence that just about
sends me screaming from the salon. "I … cut … your … cuticles."
No. No, no,
no, no, no, no, no.
The last person who "clipped my cuticles" cut
three of my fingers in four places and left me bleeding at the nail station,
and she was a professional, too. I'm
sorry, but my brain is having none of it.
It's like letting the dentist do a hysterectomy: I'm sure he could
figure it all out, but I'd really rather not have any sharp implements of tooth
torture near my ovaries nor dental floss tied around my remaining fallopian
tubes.
The cuticles are staying.
"No, that's okay," I smile while gritting my teeth.
"You need cuticles cut.
I cut them."
"Ah, I really, really just want the polish,
please."
She tries very gently to insist, but one look at my face and
she correctly reads that if this is to happen, she might end up with my foot
involuntarily up inside her nasal passages.
I want to tell her, "It's not you, it's me," and honestly mean
that. I know I have bad feet. I've broken them both, have severe nerve
damage in one from a bad accident as a teenager, and have extensive sensitivity
issues in the other following major foot surgery. I'm really not trying to be a bitch.
After we finally successfully communicate that I am no how
no way no chance on Earth getting my cuticles clipped, we move on to the polish
step. I have been working really hard at
understanding her accent, and it's not her, it's totally not her at all. I have a bad ear for accents, always need
people to repeat stuff, and am starting to suspect that soon I'm going to need
one of those old fashioned ear horns that look like mountain goat antlers. But now that my blood pressure is banging
away at my eardrums, I hear very little.
My extremely nice and extremely patient manicurist is speaking to me,
and I absolutely cannot understand her coherently because all I hear is the
beating of my heart, which right now sounds an awful lot like a twisted air
raid siren.
 |
| (autumn leaves) |
In the end, it's all good.
I get to sit with my daughter while she gets a manicure and some nail
art painted on to two of her nails. We
don't chat as much as we usually do, and it's not from lack of time. I am sitting next to her for about forty
minutes while she has her nails done. I
am truly too exhausted from the trauma to speak coherently. I was chattier after my foot surgery. Hell, I talked more coming out of anesthesia
from a colonoscopy that I am talking now after having my toenails painted a
beautiful vibrant pink.
I'm sorry, I truly am most sincerely sorry. Between you touching my feet, English being
your second language, and me being a complete and total freak, I'm not ignoring
you. I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not some dumbass who doesn't understand
English even when spoken with an accent.
I'm just a person who doesn't like to have my feet touched,
and since Tewksbury State Mental Hospital is just around the corner from the
salon, I'm trying really hard to pretend I'm completely normal. Try not to hold that against me.
