Why do elephants paint their toenails red?

So they can hide in cherry trees! Have you ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree? Works doesn't it!

I’ve been on a little bit of a Blogcation…is that a word? I took a trip and I was away from the computer that I usually blog on so I couldn’t do it. My apologies to my three readers.

Now that I’m done with the trip…I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well for the past several months but this morning I even scared myself. The bags under my eyes are so big right now that I could pack them and head to Europe for a good two weeks and not have to pay a single baggage fee. Huge black circles…ever-so-attractive. I tried to use concealer on them this morning, but the concealer, it laughed at me and said, “I can do a lot, sister, but I can’t cover THOSE.” I have my sunglasses on so that hopefully others will not shriek and then grasp their chests in fear when they see my monstrous visage. Of course my boss may be sending me for random drug testing. It’s borderline comical. And yet horrific. I’m so versatile!

Anyhoo blogging! I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I am slightly - slightly - obsessive compulsive. It’s not that I check our locks 15 consecutive times before I’m able to sleep at night - not that there’s anything wrong with that - but I’m quirky. Control-freaky. I actually prefer the term “eccentric,” but you’ll probably use the term “weird.” And that too would apply.

For instance I will only wash towels with towels. I do not believe that towels should be mixed in with clothes or - heaven forbid - sheets. Occasionally, in cases of extreme laundry emergency, I will wash socks with towels, but I don’t like it, and I won’t pretend that I do. However my family doesn’t believe in separating laundry for any reason. So I’ve had to adopt a don’t ask don’t tell attitude and just appreciate when clean laundry shows up somewhere around the house.

I also do not like to cross-pollinate brands. So I would never, ever use Tide detergent and then Downy fabric softener and then Bounce fabric sheets. I shudder just thinking about it. In order for all of our laundry products to be in perfect accord, I use Gain detergent, Gain fabric softener, and Bounce - WITH GAIN - fabric sheets. This makes perfect sense to me.

I have to drink diet Coke over ice. However, I prefer diet Mountain Dew out of a 20 oz. bottle. Not a can. And certainly not a 2-liter because that would require, you know, ice. Which completely goes against my diet Mountain Dew drinking principles, though it would be completely in accord with my diet Coke drinking principles.

Quirky!

Oh and one more thing… until Monday I had never had a pedicure.

I have obscenely ticklish feet. They are so ticklish that I have actually grounded my children for daring to tickle my feet (no I’m not kidding).

Tickling my feet is what I imaging water boarding must feel like. I get all panicky and I can’t breath and we won’t even talk about the nagging little incontinence issue that I have been cursed with because I decided to actually give birth to my gorilla children instead of adopting them from the jungle like other zoo keepers.

So I have NEVER wanted to get a pedicure. However, I was talked into it by someone who’s opinion really matters to me. We all have someone in our lives we just can’t say no to. Well this person treated me to the torture pedicure. My sister, Kelly, has been telling me to get a pedicure for a long time because it is sooooooo relaxing and I would just luuuuuuuve it. So when this opportunity arose I decided to give it a whirl.

I entered the salon and was greeted by a cute, tiny Vietnamese woman who made me feel like a bull in a china shop. In her broken English she asked me to take a seat, where another cute, tiny Vietnamese commando operative woman proceeded to roll up my pants. Fortunately I had worn my wide leg capris so she didn’t have to worry about getting a herniated disk from rolling up my pants over my ginormous calves…a gift from my Dad.

Next she filled up the footbath with hot water and put in this fizzy blue tablet thing. For a brief second I thought I saw the Tidy Bowl guy floating around…but it was just my overactive imagination. And if you tell me you don’t know who the Tidy Bowl guy is well we just can’t be friends anymore because I am apparently waaaaaay to old for you.

So I put my feet into the fizzy blue water and I’m settling back into the chair when all of a sudden the nail tech reaches over and flips the massage chair switch. Now ordinarily this would not have bothered me in the slightest, but I was a bit tense and the grabby roller bars startled me. I thought someone was getting fresh.

I eased myself back in the chair and just sat there kind of enjoying my feet in the blue fizzy water…I almost started to relax when the nail tech came back with her tool belt or should I say weapons of mass destruction. She had industrial sized cuticle clippers, nail file, pumice stone and a nailbrush. Seemingly innocent little tools, but this woman knew how to wield them in a manner that the CIA would be proud. She had obviously taken her torture training very seriously.

She grabs one of my feet out of its warm, fizzy, blue haven and starts digging and clipping and contorting my toes around. I almost suggested she dispense with the hand tools and just get a little Dremel multipurpose tool with cutting and sanding attachments, it probably would have been less painful. By this time I’m leaning so far back into my chair that I almost become impaled by the massage rollers…very relaxing.

After she finished with the clippers she filed down the nails and plopped my feet back into the fizzy blue water. I thought the hard part was over and that I would soak for a minute more and we would get to the polishing part…I was wrong…things were only just beginning to get fun.
The nail tech sat down again and picked up the pumice stone and again grabbed one of my feet out of the tub. She began rubbing the pumice stone along the bottom of my foot. I literally had to force myself to keep from kicking the little commando into the next room. My breathing was labored, my knuckles were turning white due to my death grip on the chair armrests and I was nearly in the prone position in an upright chair due to the fact that I was pushing on the footrest so hard that my thigh was taught, I was taking in little short breaths and nearly hyperventilating from the effort. The nail tech looks up and says “you tickly” and I said “yeah just a little,” I squeaked. She laughed and I swear pumiced all the more…I truly believe that she was enjoying my discomfort. By the time she got done with the other foot I was hot and sweaty and my legs felt as if I had just run a marathon.

Again my feet went back into the blue, fizzy pool. The nail tech disappeared and then came back with a crock-pot thingy filled with hot wax. She grabbed my foot and stuck it in the wax and I nearly hit the ceiling. The nail tech looked at the obvious look of pain that crossed my face and she looked down and said oooh, I turn down heat…Ya THINK!!???

She let the wax cool down for a minute while my other foot dried into a wax sculpture. Has anyone every seen the movie “The Wax Museum?” Well you know then what happened to my poor foot. I was half expecting Vincent Price to come leaping out from the back room of the salon.

Still not wanting to make a scene and trying to show a little grace and gratitude to the person who was treating me to this lovely indulgence, I allowed my other foot to be WAXED.
When the wax hardened the tech began to roll it off like skin and in fact she took a little bit of skin with her because I had a couple of tiny blisters.

Finally we get to the polishing part. I had chosen a nice Mauve pink polish. Not too daring. When the pedicure was finished I hobbled out of the salon on my large Fred Flintstone, platypus flipper feet now complete with cute chubby pink tipped sausage toes.

My husband sweet man that he is sees my feet when I get home from my trip and says “Why? Honey you know your feet are not your best feature, why would you want to emphasize them with polish?”

In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to the Holley Berry insanity defense fund.

I choose to look on the bright side…Now I can hide in Cherry Trees!