Tonight, I went to the nail salon to get a mani-pedi — one of my least favorite things to do. In fact, I loathe the entire experience — and I often feel alone in my disdain for the practice.
I am aware that it is a privilege to afford going to a nail salon; it’s not lost on me that I am complaining about a luxury service. But if you’ll allow me to bemoan the mani-pedi experience, I promise it will be entertaining at the very least.
For one, I don’t know why I even get my nails done. I don’t actually think nail polish looks all that great on me because I keep my nails quite short. I don’t like the feeling of long nails, especially because I wear contacts and need to touch my eyes. The idea of scratching my cornea seems to put off any affection for an almond-shaped nail.
I’m also a reckless being; I break nails often and with ease since I’m quite a busy person. I don’t know how to take things slow or rest, which is also why I find the act of getting a manicure/pedicure so insufferable. It’s boring. I think it’s important to be bored, of course — this is how we get great ideas. It’s important to let one’s self magnify in the silence of their boredom, allowing themself to take up space within the space.
But I don’t think this applies in nail salons — the air in there is quite different, you see, pungent with the fumes of lacquer and rubbing alcohol. I think it taints the senses. When I’m sitting in the salon chair, I feel practically bored out of my mind and begin counting whatever is near me. Tonight, I counted the bamboo leaves on the paintings above each massage chair — there was a total of thirty-seven leaves. I moved on to the twelve ornaments, the thirty-two ceiling lights, and the six manicure stations. I took note that all of the women in the salon were getting their nails painted some version of red (myself included) likely due to impending holiday celebrations.
When I get a pedicure, it’s just as bad. The whole exchange seems strange: someone pampering my feet while I sit there and mostly ignore them. I don’t want to ignore them, but my attempts to make small talk are usually unsuccessful. There are customers sitting besides me, their feet soaking in those soapy basins, whom are looking to unwind from this $40 experience. And they can’t exactly do that with me blabbing with the nail specialist.
If the pedicurist is open to a conversation, I try to ask them about their life outside of the nail salon. I know from experience what it is like to talk about work while at work — I spent several years working in food and retail. But this conversation still feels weird to me because the whole time I am still having my toes painted. It feels one-part medical and another part slumber party: this stranger spilling their secrets to me while pushing back my cuticles.
Sometimes, the pedicurist will try to lull you into relaxation by handing you the remote for the massage chair. They will say something like, “this is the remote for the massage chair if you want to use the massage chair.” This makes me feel pressured to turn the chair on because without the faint whir of the chair to fill the silence, it becomes all the more awkward that me and the pedicurist aren’t speaking to one another.
The chair typically has three massage techniques: kneading, rolling, or stretching. They all feel the same to me because the massage chair contains Shiatsu balls that are motored to move across the back of the chair. Instead of alleviating tension in my body, I find it does the opposite: making me brace for impact. The kneading motion, in particular, jerks your entire body around and makes me feel like a fool. I imagine myself in the pedicurist’s eyes — how it must feel to look up from painting my nails and see me convulsing in the chair.
If I get a gel manicure, at least I don’t have to wait for the paint to dry. But there’s that awful UV light machine that’s needed to cure the polish. Every time they coat another layer on my nails and I stick my hand under that harsh blue lamp, I imagine a news story fifteen-years from now exposing the risk of gel manicures. How the lamps, once previously thought to have minimal effects on the body, are linked to skin cancer.
I can’t think of one good thing I really like about the experience. This past semester, I didn’t get my nails done once. I got my last gels done before our family’s big trip to Italy in June, and then for the remaining summer months, I let the gel grow out or flake off before succumbing to the official removal process. For those unaware — the only way to remove gel polish (besides having a nail tech buff them off with a motorized machine) is to soak cotton balls with rubbing alcohol and put them on your nails — then, take aluminum foil and wrap it around each cotton-balled finger. And then you must sit there like this for a half hour, maybe an hour, hoping that all the gel polish simply lifts off the nail.
And yes, it’s also very boring.
I think the only reason I get my nails done is because I’ve been told it’s a good thing to do. It’s elegant; it’s ladylike; it’s “fun”. At one point, it did feel a little fun: I remember being seven or eight and my fabulous uncle taking me to a nail salon at the mall. It was my first time getting my nails done and it was probably 2006; there was a menu with nail designs to choose from. I chose some intricate hibiscus flower for my ring finger and small dot patterns for the other nails.
I was far too little to enjoy the art of this on my hand, but I imagine it felt endearing to watch the tiny flower chip away with every passing day. Away and away until nothing else was left.
I don’t know. If I really wanted to, I could take this to a deeper philosophical discussion about patriarchy and conforming to beauty standards. How most men I know never seem to care about women’s nails; how pampering one’s self is not necessarily for men; how maybe women follow these beauty trends because they are in competition with other women; how there’s internalized misogyny in every beauty practice.
All of that is really good material that maybe a better blogger would write about. But for myself, I really only care to vent about being bored at the nail salon. Spas, too, I find rather boring. And I also find sitting on the beach boring — I find the idea of napping very boring, so I don’t nap — and I think getting my hair cut is also boring.
I’m pro-boredom but anti-boring. Do you follow me? It’s a paradox. I know the mind needs to rest, but I’m so resistant to the experiences that would allow for such rest that I avoid doing them. I let my nails break and my hair grow out and I bring books and sandwiches to the beach.
I’m learning I’m a very difficult person, I think. When I worked at a diner, the Bengali men who worked alongside me would say Shanti to each other — essentially, inner peace. When I’d whirl past them with receipts or plates or bags, they’d stop me, dead-on, and say, “You? No shanti. Never.”
Yours Cumulatively,
That American Girl
That American Girl 
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