Pretty Toes

My Prevention magazine provides me with such useful information.  This recent issue said that if you have dry or cracked heels (which I have never had until this year—is this another sign of getting old?), you should have a monthly pedicure.  So, on Saturday, when I started itching to get out, I suggested to Dave that I run out and get my first pedicure.  And maybe because he was feeling the pressure of the impending Mother’s Day, he enthusiastically agreed.  So, I called a friend of mine who also has four kids, and forty-five minutes later, we were sitting in gently reclining, massage chairs with our feet in a whirlpool tub.

I decided that this time I wasn’t going to ruin my time out with twinges of guilt and worry about how Dave was coping (which is generally how I compensate for any pleasurable, non-kids expedition).  The heated, massage chair was very nice, although I can’t say I’ve ever really wanted a bottom massage but I couldn’t figure out how to make only the back massage part work.  And I think I’m a little too ticklish to fully enjoy a pedicure, but it was still wonderfully girly to sit and chat with a friend and end up with prettily painted toenails.

And if you didn’t get a pedicure or manicure this weekend, you missed the place to be—it was packed the entire time we were there.  Three or four other women were getting pedicures at the same time we were.  One woman was there with her two daughters, who looked to be about 11 (possibly 12) and 14.  They were getting fake nails installed, and the younger daughter wasn’t too happy about it.  The mother looked very nice and sympathetic but completely together, and she kept reassuring her that next time it would be better because she wouldn’t have to get the whole set of nails put on, they’d just get trimmed and painted.  At first, I had thought they must be going to a prom or a fancy dinner, but since the mother made it sound like they’d be back, I don’t know.  I mean I guess there must be some teenagers who wear fake nails.  I just don’t know why a mother would encourage it or, worse, force her daughter to get them.  Then again, I lived through high school wearing mostly jeans and tee-shirts, and I can’t actually recall if, of the dozen or so—if that!--times I’ve painted my fingernails, I’ve used any color on them.  (Do I really qualify to be a mother of daughter?)  Still, I came home and painted Abby’s toenails a glittering pink.

But even the pedicure wasn’t as nice a gift as the hand-made cards, plaques, a painted flowerpot, a shirt with my kids' handprints, and dinner made by Dave.  Still, you could probably persuade me to have another one sometime.  Who wants to come?