Not A Happy Ending (Cigar Smoke 10-25-09)

This is a public service column. It is my semi-educated guess that most of you men out there have never had a pedicure. Am I right? Of course I’m right. (I voted for Bush. Twice.)

And until I was 68, I had never had a pedicure either. But, because of a couple of knee operations, bad back and a problem with uncontrolled lankiness, I have had a hard time cutting my toenails lately. So now I have had three pedicures — one at a private nail salon, one from my podiatrist and one by my wife. And I would like to share my experiences so you other men can reap the benefits of my sacrifice for my fellow man.

My first toenail experience occurred in a little nail salon on Colorado Boulevard. I tried to find one that I was pretty sure none of my friends would use or see me enter. So I walk in, without an appointment, and I’m standing in front — hoping to be ignored so I can leave — and then this cute little Filipino-Thai-Korean-Hong Kong woman says, “Can I help you?” And I whisper that I’d like a pedicure. And she says, “What?” And I whisper just a little louder, “I’d like a pedicure.” And she yells out in her little Filipino-Thai-Korean-Hong Kongian voice, “A pedicure!”

Four women and the four salon employees doing beauty stuff to them, and two other currently unattractive people waiting to be beautified look over at me. And then down at my feet. Let me tell you, it is embarrassing when ugly people look down at your toes.

So I get in the chair and I’m sitting there and the toenail woman comes over and looks at me, and says, “Well?” I say, “What?” She says, “It would be easier if you took your shoes off.” I always thought Asian women weren’t supposed to be funny.

Then I put my feet into this little pan of water she had. And then she took off my socks and got started. (Us American men can really be funny, too.) She starts washing my feet in water that looked like it had been recycled from Roman Polanski’s hot tub. Then she towels my toes off and picks one of seven toenail clipper/scissor things and then starts cutting my toenails. And with each toe she would take another cutter and cut like a professional, baby. I was impressed.

Then she filed them down and buffed them with an electric buffer. Then she put plain polish on them. Geez, my damn toenails looked better than my face. And then I looked at her and she looked at me. And I was getting the vibe that I was finished, and that I should leave. But I knew that couldn’t be true, because I hadn’t even asked her yet about the happy ending.

“That’ll be $12,” she said. And I said, “And how much for the pedicure?” She threw back her head and laughed that throaty Asian-woman laugh that only Asian women who are humorous can laugh.

Then, about eight weeks later, I went to my podiatrist to give him a shot at the toenails. He had told me that because I had diabetes, I should take good care of my feet, so to punish him, I made him do the dirty work.

I took off my shoes and he stepped back and said, “Whew. Those are some real sock-rippers there, boy.” And he put on his rubber gloves and said, “Eight years of medical school for this.” He then sprayed my feet with Raid and took one big-ass nail-cutter surgical instrument out of his bag and cut my toenails faster than UCLA can lose a football game. I couldn’t believe it was over so quick — I thought I was having sex.

Then I asked him, “What about the filing and buffing and polishing?” And I don’t think his response would have been approved by the American Medical Association, but he threw the surgical instrument at me while I was running down his hallway. Just as I got to the front door I looked back, and he reminded me of Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” That sweating, glistening, fiendish face of my podiatrist will live with me forever.

OK, another eight weeks go by and more of my socks are getting ripped, so I have to find someone to cut my toenails before they run wild in the streets, like urchins in Rio. So I think to myself: Self, whom do I know that I can now turn to after burning my toenail bridges with non-happy-ending salon women and killer podiatrists? And I answer myself. Self, you can turn to your loving wife, who, although she wouldn’t agree to “obey” you at the altar, did agree to take you in good health and in a long-toenailed state of health.

So I walked up to my beloved, my little Margie Pargie Wargie, and I licked her left ear and breathed heavily on her neck with savagely hot breath, and asked her if she would like to cut my teeny-weeny toenails just this once because of her deep and semi-abiding love for me, her diabetical Muffin Mate with very few socks left. And she said, “If I won’t obey you, why the hell would I cut those suckers?” “Because you love me and you love hot savage breath, that’s why,”
I humbly replied.

So, incredibly, she really did cut my toenails, and all was going pretty well. Right up until I asked her if there would be a happy ending.