On a whim I decided to get a pedicure today. It's winter. It was snowing. I haven't shaved my legs in ages. But, I went anyway. Partly because I like the massage chair (unless I get the broken one, which happens on occasion and gives me the rage), and partly because I like to look down at my toes and see them painted better than I could ever hope to do on my own. It makes me feel like I'm actually taking care of myself, even though I'm probably not. When I arrived, there was a woman guarding the nail polish wall. LITERALLY she was guarding it, like someone was going to take her favorite color or something, but she already had a color in her hand, so...not really sure what her deal was. I tried to move a chair next to her to get to the wall and she ever so slightly shifted her weight to her other foot to take up more space on my side. I had a momentary flash of body checking her over the half wall near the pedicure chairs, and she flew super high up in the air and landed in a cloud of dust...screaming the whole way. It was funny; I laughed. The laugh made me calmer and I just stepped up to the wall and took my sweet ass time choosing a color. She huffed and went and sat next to her husband (wtf?) that she had forced to come and sit with her. (For those of you who've never had a pedicure, it takes a long time. And unless you are also getting a pedicure, there is no way you will enjoy sitting in a nail salon waiting for someone else to get one. I don't care if the nail techs are strippers and the Playboy channel is on and there is a chocolate fountain in the corner guarded by a unicorn and/or genie that grants you wishes. You just won't. The lighting in those places is terrible, but not in the 'it's dark and sexy in here' kind of way, in an annoying 'I can't really read this magazine but you can't see my leg hair' kind of way, and the smell from the nail stations is enough to coat your lungs in a rather toxic kind of way.) So after the Nail Polish Nazi moved, I narrowed it down to two similar grey/brown sparkle colors (it is winter and all and hot pink isn't really a winter color). So I turned the bottles upside down, because clearly they would look better or worse at a different angle or something, and realized they had names. Now, I'd love to have a job where people bring me colors and I point to them and give them names. I'd give them ridiculous names, beyond ridiculous names, because most people don't read the names on nail polish bottles. They pick one because it is a sparkly purple blue that matches their underwear band or some damn thing, not because it's called 'Mystery Hour'...unless you're me. That is how I made my decision. The darker color was called 'My Private Jet'. It sounded cool, made me picture myself on a private jet, and I was wearing an amazing little black dress. The color was nowhere to be found in my fantasy, but I liked the picture it painted in my head. The lighter color was called 'Ingrid'. 'Ingrid'? Really? I pictured an overweight opera singer in sweat pants. No offense if your name is Ingrid, but it's my connotation and I'll have it if I want to. Guess which color I chose? (If you said 'Ingrid', we need to talk about how much you actually know about me. AND you have to stop reading my blog. Right now. Go. I'll wait...)
As I was waiting, I looked at the other colors the other women around me had picked. The woman to my left picked 'Mystery Hour'. I know this because her name is Tina and I dragged her there with me and that's how she picked her color...by name...which is why we're friends. The woman to my right had a color akin to a crushed up smurf...blood and all. It was a bright blue/purple/red sparkle color. I never knew you could get that much awful into a little tiny glass bottle. The woman next to her had clear...with GIANT ASS CHUNKS of silver sparkle. It just looked lumpy. The woman next to her had a sad, dark green. I'm not sure how a color can be sad, but it was. Like a crushed velvet dress your mom makes you wear to church on Christmas because it fits and it's green, but it itches and is faded and you hate it type of green. It made me sad for her. And the woman next to her was actually a good looking black man in a suit. And a long tie. I think he was there with his girlfriend, but he was clearly no stranger to the pedi chair. It was great! (No nail polish for him--but he did read an entire stack of People magazines). As I looked at the colors around me, it inspired me to create my own colors and play God naming them. So I did:
Well, the sad thing is I'm pretty sure people would actually choose these colors to wear without knowing what the color was called. I think I might actually own the pink one...but it's called "Celebrity Sparkle" or something. Does that count?
