The Substitute Nail Place

I pledge allegiance, to my original beauty shop, the one and only good place to go.

Except when your sister in law forgets about you.

There have been only a couple times in the last 25 or so years that I've been forgotten at the beauty shop. Those times always have two accountable parties. Me. and She. The both of us. One time we blamed the 'force'. A temporary disturbance in the 'force' made us both forget.

Is a forgotten nail appointment by two people even an appointment at all? I digress.....

We're both doing a lot of different stuff, and family members, close friends and an occasional on-looker CLAIM there's some issues involving early onset dementia, so.... sometimes really important nail appointments get forgotten. And, as she will tell you, 'Family gets you nowhere around here.'

I'd like to raise my hands with an Amen to that statement. Sorry... digressing again.

So, because of a whole lot of un-fore-seen and forgotten reasons, I had to go to the substitute nail place. Twice. Whatever.... the second time is the funny story.

I arrived at the substitute nail place only 30 short minutes after it opened. Several, if not nearly all, of the chairs were already filled. This is the really good substitute nail place. PrissE recommended it for emergencies. I'm safe here.

I step to the counter, and request an acrylic nail fill. Tim (name changed to protect his innocence) says, 'Let me see you nails.'

I obeyed.

Tim has a furrowed brow as he says, 'You wait 10 minutes.'

Again, I obeyed.

Sure enough, 10 minutes later, Tim says, 'You sit chair 2.'

I obeyed. While placing MY OWN POLISH I BROUGHT FROM HOME at my station. Tim sits down, motions for me to give him my hands..... I obeyed (this is not my first nail rodeo). Tim then tells me that it's going to cost $2 more because of my solar nails.

Me: No, they are a-cry-lic nails. (I speak louder and slower when conversing with the Vietnamese.)

Tim: Oh. You do them yourself?

Me: No.

Tim: Oh. You friend do them?

Me: No. (Because, I'm not at the substitute nail place to let every person in the universe know my life story. Or, from whence other beauty shop I came.)

Tim: Oh. Still $2 more.

Me: Alright, but they are professionally done. They are acrylic nails. Premium Powders to be exact. The pink and the white.

Tim: These nails bad. Very bad. All crooked. Lines no good.

Me: Thanks. My regular nail girl will be excited to know your opinion of her work.

Lady beside me laughs out loud. In a big LOL fashion, as we both make faces.

Tim: You go chair 4.

I obeyed.

New nail guy has very little to say. Fills in my acrylic nails, buffs and shapes them, tells me to wash then, new nail guy leaves.

I return to chair 4, where the new nail lady polishes my nails, WITH MY OWN POLISH I BROUGHT FROM HOME, then begins to tell me that the polish doesn't look good. She recommends I use something else. I explain to her, in my slow talk, that I want this specific color because it will be pretty at my sister's wedding.

She's quiet for a moment, then with her most ugly wrinkled up face tells me that I 'need brows done, look too bushy.'

Now, I'm smiling because I think PrissE is having me 'punked' at the substitute nail place, so I decline a wax ripping off procedure and leave.

Later that day, in the car I reflected on the genius of the substitute nail place. They basically insult you until you concede to their procedures. It totally worked! Nail lady ripped 3 sets of eye brows while I was there, just by telling the gals they looked bushy.

It's fascinating.

Ya'll please don't tell my sister in law to insult me. She'll forget what she said, and I'll leave with the wrong procedure. No one wins in the insulting-dementia relationship.