My hometown is a sleepy, laid back town which does not differ much from how it was 20 years ago. It only had 1 makeshift beauty parlor that mostly serviced women and girls. the males get their haircut from the neighborhood's most capable haircutters, whose primary qualification is to be able to cut hair in a straight line. The ability to copy the most popular (usually a decade delayed from the actual popularity status of stars) action star’s hairstyle is an added point but since not everyone had access to TV it’s a qualification that's is very difficult to find. Males who work in offices would get their haircut from the barbershops in the capital town so they can go to work without looking like a movie extra.
On weekends my mother would ask the beautician for home service, a usual practice in our sleepy town. There are times that she would need to make reservations as early as Thursdays because by then the list would be long. This nail-pimping frenzy especially happens during special occasions, like the fiestas.
At times, a handful of my mother’s neighborhood friends would arrange a weekend appointment with the beautician and have her come over to our house. She would do all the necessary “pimp my nails” to my mother and her friends while the group partook the latest rumor in town. The beautician, as all beauticians are, would also contribute and before you know it they’ve formed this little female clique bound together but their orality.
On weekends my mother would ask the beautician for home service, a usual practice in our sleepy town. There are times that she would need to make reservations as early as Thursdays because by then the list would be long. This nail-pimping frenzy especially happens during special occasions, like the fiestas.
At times, a handful of my mother’s neighborhood friends would arrange a weekend appointment with the beautician and have her come over to our house. She would do all the necessary “pimp my nails” to my mother and her friends while the group partook the latest rumor in town. The beautician, as all beauticians are, would also contribute and before you know it they’ve formed this little female clique bound together but their orality.
Some groups had their nails done while playing cards but since my mother vowed since she was young to never touch those cards, she never learned to gamble. Gambling while pimping the nails was never a common scene in the weekend nail services in our home.
When we relocated to the edge of the town center, our house became a little too far for the beautician to visit. We also do not have neighbors that my mother could gather to make better the trip better to the beautician, at least economically. Because taking the trip to our home and only earning enough to break even was not a very attractive offer, the home service stopped coming. My mother looked somewhere else to have her nails fixed. I would later learn she found a new nails lady and that she is being serviced in her office. Along with the rest of her lady officemates. While she signed important government documents, the nails lady would be poking and painting her nails while supplying her and her officemates with the latest and juiciest rumors in town.
She become very close to her nails lady, she became a permanent fixture in every celebration at home. When I worked for my mother’s office some years ago, the nail lady became at ease with me and started telling me about her sexual life. She said she is the more acrobatic of the two of them -- her and her husband. Amazing, these nail ladies.
She was very proud of her skills as a nails lady and I felt guilty for not giving her the kind of importance she gave me. One day I let her do my toe nails, sans the painting, because she said she could make them look better. I didn’t enjoy it although I do admit they looked a lot better after our session. But seeing my mother and her friends, seeing how nails cleaning became some sort of an addiction, I swore not to follow the same path and up to this time, my finger nails were the virginal kind that they ever were and forever will be.
I would say that the nail arts mother’s nail ladies do were interesting. There was a time when this tacky nail art became the fad. At that point in my young life, anything that looked interesting and different is fascinating. I was honestly intrigued by that tacky nail art and always wanted my mother to have it. That particular nail art looked like a square yin-yang, with the yang (the white) bearing the delicately placed dot, same color as the yin. Nail ladies like to suggest provocative colors, like bloody red. During that time my mother was the low key kind and never wore screaming colors, like she sometimes does with the clothes, shoes and bags now. She would choose neutral or earth colors, tan mostly. She did try that yin yang nail art once but immediately shifted back to either French nails or the plain nail paint. She never explained why she stopped donning that nail style, except that it was, she said, “Ugly. Especially when they start chipping.”
The tradition of going to the manicurist never prospered in my time. Except for that one time attempt to get rid of the guilt, never did I again try to let some nail lady touch my virginal nails. I think I will have eternal disgust for manicure/pedicure addiction.
After decades of being in the club, my mother’s nails turned tragically unattractive. It was the direct result of small town, unhygienic practice of calling home (office) service and allowing her to use the same manicure-pedicure set on all of the 20 other clients listed. My mother contracted that awful nail fungus that makes your nails really thick and discolored (dark brown to black), sometimes, smelly even. It does not easily go away, at least in my mother’s case. I think it is curable but because my mother has grown busy (and old) she would rather have those ugly nails covered up by glossy nail polish than stick to the meticulous regimen of treatment required by the dermatologist. She also suspected it’s the un-sterilized set gave her Hepa B, though her doctors thought otherwise. Hepa B can't easily be transmitted that way.
And I never saw the office nails lady again—the one who candidly told me about her sexual innuendos. I don’t see her in our house parties anymore. But that’s really not something new. My mother’s relationship with friends and nail ladies, just like the nail arts, do not really last as they easily chip and turn ugly.
FIN.
When we relocated to the edge of the town center, our house became a little too far for the beautician to visit. We also do not have neighbors that my mother could gather to make better the trip better to the beautician, at least economically. Because taking the trip to our home and only earning enough to break even was not a very attractive offer, the home service stopped coming. My mother looked somewhere else to have her nails fixed. I would later learn she found a new nails lady and that she is being serviced in her office. Along with the rest of her lady officemates. While she signed important government documents, the nails lady would be poking and painting her nails while supplying her and her officemates with the latest and juiciest rumors in town.
She become very close to her nails lady, she became a permanent fixture in every celebration at home. When I worked for my mother’s office some years ago, the nail lady became at ease with me and started telling me about her sexual life. She said she is the more acrobatic of the two of them -- her and her husband. Amazing, these nail ladies.
She was very proud of her skills as a nails lady and I felt guilty for not giving her the kind of importance she gave me. One day I let her do my toe nails, sans the painting, because she said she could make them look better. I didn’t enjoy it although I do admit they looked a lot better after our session. But seeing my mother and her friends, seeing how nails cleaning became some sort of an addiction, I swore not to follow the same path and up to this time, my finger nails were the virginal kind that they ever were and forever will be.
I would say that the nail arts mother’s nail ladies do were interesting. There was a time when this tacky nail art became the fad. At that point in my young life, anything that looked interesting and different is fascinating. I was honestly intrigued by that tacky nail art and always wanted my mother to have it. That particular nail art looked like a square yin-yang, with the yang (the white) bearing the delicately placed dot, same color as the yin. Nail ladies like to suggest provocative colors, like bloody red. During that time my mother was the low key kind and never wore screaming colors, like she sometimes does with the clothes, shoes and bags now. She would choose neutral or earth colors, tan mostly. She did try that yin yang nail art once but immediately shifted back to either French nails or the plain nail paint. She never explained why she stopped donning that nail style, except that it was, she said, “Ugly. Especially when they start chipping.”
The tradition of going to the manicurist never prospered in my time. Except for that one time attempt to get rid of the guilt, never did I again try to let some nail lady touch my virginal nails. I think I will have eternal disgust for manicure/pedicure addiction.
After decades of being in the club, my mother’s nails turned tragically unattractive. It was the direct result of small town, unhygienic practice of calling home (office) service and allowing her to use the same manicure-pedicure set on all of the 20 other clients listed. My mother contracted that awful nail fungus that makes your nails really thick and discolored (dark brown to black), sometimes, smelly even. It does not easily go away, at least in my mother’s case. I think it is curable but because my mother has grown busy (and old) she would rather have those ugly nails covered up by glossy nail polish than stick to the meticulous regimen of treatment required by the dermatologist. She also suspected it’s the un-sterilized set gave her Hepa B, though her doctors thought otherwise. Hepa B can't easily be transmitted that way.
And I never saw the office nails lady again—the one who candidly told me about her sexual innuendos. I don’t see her in our house parties anymore. But that’s really not something new. My mother’s relationship with friends and nail ladies, just like the nail arts, do not really last as they easily chip and turn ugly.
FIN.
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