Male Pedicurists: Masters in Their Own Right

A few summers ago, my friends Jill, Kelsey, and I chose to go to a nail salon close to my house in Grass Valley. Jill and I smiled and laughed nervously as we watched the people working below us, slightly self-conscious of the condition of our feet. As it turns out, working at a Summer Camp in the dirt for two and a half months wearing only flip-flops can really do a number on your feet. As we had just returned from our summer-long dirt extravaganza, the dirt had become so ingrained in my skin that I honestly began to think that my feet were just naturally a different skin tone than the rest of my body. Needless to say, Jill and I felt somewhat rude showing up at such a classy place (and by classy, I mean Jades Nails located next to the Fish and Chips dive in the GV) with such atrocious limbs. In some feeble attempt to save face, I offered the explanation, "Uhh, we work at a camp." To which one of the pedicurists retorted, "I can tell." Whoops.

As my pedicure progressed, I looked down and realized that the all-too-friendly Asian American man that was working on my feet seemed to be breaking out in a sweat. He had been attempting to file off the calluses on my heels for a good fifteen minutes, and to no avail. He finally said, "You want calluses off? I charge you five dollars."

I was slightly taken aback, thinking that he had just said he was going to charge me five dollars extra to continue sawing on my hooves. However, I glanced at his little cart of goodies next to my chair and realized that he was motioning to a corroded looking jar with a well-worn label. I picked up the jar, and upon closer inspection I realized it was a jar of well...ACID. A jar of acid that they had obviously had in stock for far too long, and that was only cracked open when people with freak-show feet came in with concrete calluses. "Umm...you want to put acid on my feet?" I questioned. He nodded encouragingly.

While this whole event unfolded, Jill was nearly falling out of her chair she was laughing so hard, and I think Kelsey may have peed a little. In the most polite voice that I could muster, I replied, "Umm, no thanks, I'm going organic. I don't put acid in or on my body."

He smiled at me as he motioned to my impenetrable skin and said, "Dis why you single. Dis why you have no boyfriend." Amazing. Not only was he able to look at me and deduce that I was single, but he could also pinpoint the exact reason for my solitary life. Independence, Choice, Non wavering belief in staying away from anyone who belongs to a Clan or Guild are, apparently, not among the reasons that I am currently flying solo. Nope, the man giving me a pedicure had, in five minutes, deduced that I am single because of my Camp feet.

Well, this really pushed Jill and Kelsey over the edge, and they immediately deemed Jades Nails the best place EVER to get a pedicure. They agreed that the hour long drive from Sacramento was well worth it for the comedy show.

The man shrugged his shoulders, and, mood unaltered by my rejection of the acid, began dutifully filing my feet. However, in a final display of comic genius, he did begin singing Cisco's heartwarming and well known hip-hop hit "The Thong Song" in a voice that only an Asian American male pedicurist can produce. "Let me see dat thoooooong!" He crooned, as he looked up at me. I silently cursed myself for, once again, wearing a skirt while getting a pedicure, and I shoved the folds of fabric on my lap deeper in between my legs so that not even one sliver of light would reach my "no-no" parts, as Kelsey called them.

On the up-side, my feet looked FABULOUS, and the three of us did manage to completely weird-out an elderly woman who was getting her nails done by having a rather loud conversation about Brazilian waxes. I figure I broke even with humiliation/entertainment that day.