My Pedicure Adventure

I like to think of myself as a man’s man. If I’m not that manly, at least a guy’s guy. If I’m not that I’m surely not a girly, girl. But, the other day I have to say I enjoyed something that women love, the pedicure.

Let me explain how this happened. No, I didn’t go seek out a great mani/pedi spa here in Abq. I’m sure there are several, but I’ve never even considered getting one. It all started with my lovely wife. She received a coach’s wife gift for, well, being a coaches wife. Coach’s wives deserve gifts because they give so much of their family for the sake of sport/hobby/etc. It just so happened that this year one of the gifts was a pedicure from a local nail place. (I believe “nail place” is the technical term)

I love my wife and all of her little idiosyncrasies. I have big issues, so my wife’s little ones are cute. One of her issues is with people “working” on her. The thought of getting a manicure, pedicure, massage, facial, etc is repulsive to her. So, when she got this gift she knew she was not going to use it.

I have a history of my feet giving me problems. I’ve had one ingrown toenail surgically removed. I’ve “surgically” removed a number of them myself in the past. My feet and nailbeds hurt after 2 hours of basketball on Sunday nights. I decided to see what a pedicure could do for me. I took the coupon, mapped out the route, and nervously went to the nail place…

I pulled up and had a little internal battle. Should I, or shouldn’t I was the question kept asking. It was my day off, I didn’t recognize any of the cars in the parking lot and the place looked fairly empty so I went in. I walked in and saw a number of Vietnamese ladies watching TV or talking to one another. They greeted me very loudly and very warmly. I showed them the gift certificate and they pointed me to a chair. I took my shoes off and sat down.

I was relived because I was in a chair next to the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen. I found out later that it was a man, so it made me feel a little better that the only two customers in this place were men. Ann pulled up a stool and started doing her thing. She worked quickly trimming, sanding, grinding and the like on my feet, toenails, and heels. I’m not really sure what she was doing, but I know it didn’t hurt and some parts were very soothing. There was a lot of soaking involved, which I enjoyed too. I told her about my ingrown toenail issue and she said she knew and already took care of it. At least I think that is what she said, her English was broken but very fast.

In no time the whole ordeal was over and my feet felt great. In fact, my feet felt great all week. Even after 2 hours of basketball (my size 13’s get stomped quite regularly) there is no pain. I’m pretty excited about the whole thing. So, will I get another one? I’m not sure. The answer is somewhere between maybe and probably. I’m not sure I’m willing to forfeit my mancard every week/month to get a little foot relief. Only time will tell.

The only downside of this adventure is that I couldn’t get a little video out of my head. Anjelah Johnson is pretty funny an nails the accents.