Oops

The day of departure approaches, and I keep a wary eye on my nails. Is one about to break? Are they too long to make it through the week?

Impulsively, I find a nearby nail salon that takes walk-in appointments. When I arrive, I like the looks of the place. All Asian men.

Right away, I'm seated in one of those spa chair thingies. One old Asian guy goes to work on my feet, the other starts massaging my back.

I'm in heaven.

All I can think about is how five minutes before, I was staring at a computer and now an old Asian man who I've never met is touching me more intimately than any man has touched me in years. (Okay, to be fair, NO man has touched me in a long time, intimately or otherwise.)

Thoughts race through my head at the wonderfulness of it all. I think about a friend of mine who does this on a weekly basis--although, let's be honest, she's one of those freaks of nature who actually reaches (um, shall we say...a sexual peak?) during a manicure. Then I worry about the fact that I'm thinking about my friend's sexual proclivities when I should be concentrating on making my next appointment. I'm also worrying about how this is all going through my mind as one long blog post.

Anyway, I get the whole ball of wax. The shoulder-back-arm-hand-finger-calf-ankle-foot-toe massage.

And it's bliss.

When it's all over, I look at my nails.

They're gone.

I mean, literally, they couldn't be any shorter.

Somehow "take them down to half"--his words, not mine--translated to "slash the suckers down to the quick."

I AM SO BUMMED.

Lesson learned: Asian men/massage = good; Asian men/manicure = not so much