"Spa Pedicure"

Sitting here feeling a bit traumatized by the whole experience, I'm really not sure where to begin. To preface, I'll say I'm 36 weeks pregnant and thought it would be a great idea to get a nice relaxing pedicure before the big day. Since none of my shoes currently fit my ever expanding feet, I've resorted to full time flip flop wear, and have noticed in the past couple weeks some "rough" spots on my feet. I usually really like my feet. They are actually one feature on my body that I really do like, and I've already had to throw my foot vanity by the wayside as I see them slowly swell, get a bit calloused, and change shape as the months get closer to my due date. Hence the need for a pedicure. Plus, who doesn't want to deliver their baby with freshly painted toenails for all to see? After all, isn't just about everyone going to be in that vicinity and need something, anything, pretty to look at?

If you've read my past posts, I think I mentioned something or other about being a bit tight when it comes to money. Thus it would suffice that I would search out a "lower cost" option for said pedicure. I looked at a number of beauty schools and found one I thought looked professional enough, and low and behold - full spa pedicure $13. Can't beat that, right? Well,....come with me while I take you on my pedicure journey, and you can judge for yourself.

I show up at 9am, right on time for my appointment. I look around the waiting area and see about ten other women waiting in the same lobby for their appointment. I'm wondering to myself if they have appointments or are walk-ins, and after about fifteen minutes, ask the girl next to me if she has an appointment and how long she normally waits. She tells me, "oh, yeah, I come here about twice a month and sometimes have to wait up to a half hour even with an appointment." Wondering why she still comes twice a month with that answer, I wait five more minutes before my cosmotology wonder, Mirakle, (yeah, miracle with a "k") comes to take me to the back for my pedicure. Lest I forget her name at any point during my "spa pedicure" experience, it is conveniently tattoo'd on her right outer bicep, about four inches by three inches, above an even larger tattoo of a diamond.

We wind through the sea of cosmotology students trying out hair extensions, colorings, and their flat iron skills before making our way to a little plastic chair in the corner, a plastic "foot bath" sitting on the floor in front of the chair, and what looks like the kind of bench a shoe-fitter uses at a shoe store to help you try on shoes, sitting in front of the "foot bath". I take a moment and comtemplate sitting down or turning right around and walking back out the front door. Then I think, well, everyone has to start somewhere, and maybe her her name will come to play and I'll receive a fantastic pedicure, and all would have been lost if I would have prejudged this spa experience.

I try to make myself comfortable in the plastic chair and can't help but notice the soothing musicality of George Michael, I Want Your Sex, booming through the speakers. As I sit down and start to dip my feet into the bubbling murkiness, I see a long black hair floating half in the water and half draped over the edge of the plastic bath. I point it out to her and she removes it with her (I kid you not) 3" nails, saying, "oh, I'm so sorry, there's just hair everywhere around here". I look to the side of the shoe-fitter/pedicurist bench and see an open container of what seems to be pedicure tools. I see some nail files, random cotton balls, what looks like lotion, and maybe a pumice stone. She has me put my feet in the water and then says she'll be right back. Mirakle returns about five minutes later with a stack of almost thread bare, stained towels that could pass as dish towels from the local Taco Bell. I try to ignore the dark stains and convince myself that they are indeed clean (as is the foot bath water, as is the foot bath water, as is the foot bath water - if I keep saying it it will be true), just stained from all the practice the students have had to perfect their skills at cosmotology central.

She wipes off my feet, files down my toe nails (I think that's what she was doing), and then squirts some cuticle cream on my toes. Not rubbing in the cream, she takes out one of her "tools" (and at this point I'm truly praying it's from her sterilized kit and not just used to practice on one of her fellow students - assuming at this point that she has at least practiced on a fellow student, but starting to accept that my odds aren't the best) and pushes back my cuticles. After each application of lotion or cream or filing, has me put my feet back into the "bath". After this brief treatment, she then asks me what color polish I'd like. I ask her, well, I thought I signed up for the "spa pedicure" rather than just the regular pedicure, where there is supposed to be exfoliant sea salts involved. She says, "oh, yeah, ok....", looks to her fellow student next to her with a blank look, and said fellow student then directs her to go get the exfoliant and hot towels. Mirakle comes back another five minutes later with a little thimble sized plastic container with some shiny blue cream inside and a couple bundles which look like foil wrapped burritos. She empties half of the thimble into her hands and starts to spread the blue cream over my legs for about 20 seconds, her armful of bracelets gettting caught by my feet with each rubbing of the cream and pinching my ankles. She then unwraps the foil burrito to expose yet another warm stained dishtowel in which she wraps my pinched, blue cream drenched foot.

She "dries" off my legs and feet and then shows me the colors I have to choose from for the polish. I ask her if they sand down the callouses before they polish the feet, since one of the main reasons I wanted a pedicure was to get my feet back to their soft pretty selves. She said no they don't, due to diabetes. Excuse me? Yes, diabetes - they can't use metal on feet because it could cause infection to someone with diabetes. One man had a hangnail, she says, and right there in the salon (right where I was sitting actually), had a stroke because of infection. I don't even ask anymore questions and go with the red nail polish.

This should have been the point where a huge red flag went up in my mind. Based on my experience up to this point, I should NOT have chosen the brightest color in the box, even if I wanted something bright, because I never wear anything very bright. NOT the time to be adventurous.

Mirakle pushes aside the shoe-fitter bench she's been sitting on, tugs a the waist of her jeans, and sits on the floor in front of me, straddling my feet. I am actually very grateful at this point that for the first time I can't see what she's doing. I know she finished the first foot because she looks up at me with a semi-scared/regretful expression on her face and says, "Don't worry, I'll fix it." Yeah, um, don't worry......because up to this point I've been sooooo not worried. She finally finishes all three coats on both feet, ensuring that I will in no way be able to chip off or remove any part of this polish on this side of heaven, and asks if I want to sit a while to let them dry. As I hear Ace of Base serinading me in the background, I make a quick decision to let them dry as I walk out the door.......as fast as humanly possible. I pay my $13, and as I make my way down to my car, I decide if I should go to the little Vietnamese nail studio down the street from where I live to "fix" this disaster, or if I should go home, take pictures, and blog about it first, so others can both hopefully get a laugh out of, and also learn from my unfortunate experience.

In case you don't believe my experience, I'm attaching a photo for proof. And what you see on the big and fourth toes are not my toes bleeding, that's just Mirakle's little touch of sweetness to the whole "spa pedicure" experience.