Awhile back I was using a gift card to get a massage and a pedicure at a nice spa.
I was feeling relaxed after the 50-minute full-body rubdown when the middle-aged blank-faced, Botox-lipped nail technician approached me for my pedicure.
She led me to the nail room and started preparing the table where manicures are done.
"Oh, it's a pedicure," I told her.
She moved over to the foot bath station instead and started filling the water.
It was in fact a special "toasty toes" pedicure I'd requested over the phone when making my appointment days earlier. With fall-scented foot scrub and lotion.
When I asked about gel polish, she responded "They don't like to do that here. It's too expensive".
From the few words she uttered during the pedicure, I was able to determine that she had owned various nail salons since the early 80s, and lost her most recent shop during the pandemic. It was about to reopen shortly, and she was biding her time here until then.
When another nail technician came into the tiny room to handle some business, the silence could cut a knife. There was not an ounce of pleasantry between these two. No small talk to fill the teeny space.
Right then, I knocked my phone into the draining foot bath.
The other technician noticed and made a few compassionate utterances.
Nothing from Botox lips.
My God. The special pumpkin spice pedicure. It wasn't happening.
That was a $10 add-on that wasn't going to occur.
Because I'm normally a bold soul, but I'll be DAMNED if I was going to ask this woman at this point for my "toasty toes".
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