I hate giving myself a manicure. It takes me ages and I can’t really have the nail varnish I want. It’s ok if the colour isn’t too dark but if it is, I make a mess of it.

I was supposed to get my nails done before going away for a few days with my husband, only the girl who does them, has probably broken her foot. I know, she needs her hands to do her job, but unfortunately she doesn’t live in the shop. So I Ieft with my hands in a mess.

Today I am walking around town and I see one of those “nail shops”, than another, on the third one I decide to go in. It’s one of those places where everybody is having that devastating manicure which lasts forever and ruins your nails. I only want them to paint mine. I have actually given myself a manicure earlier today but couldn’t bring myself to paint my nails, too much of an effort! I try to explain myself in english and it proves quite a challenge. Ten minutes later, I think I have managed. They start showing me colours and I end up choosing the least evil of them, just so we can get on with things (5 clients in the shop, all under 20, staring at me, wondering what the heck a 50 something is doing in there and speaking so much!!) and we finally get started. I know within seconds I have made a mistake, but I can’t bring myself to start a 10 minute conversation again, so I just smile and change fingers when required. The young oriental girl, takes about 1 minute per nail, which, with normal nail varnish, is bound to come out a disaster, but I keep on smiling (and thinking “I have tried” and “I can take it all off soon”).  At the end of all available fingers, she tells me I must wait 10 minutes. The guy next to her signals I must put my hands inside one of those cooking machines and I decline, just in case it does cook my nails and I can’t take the varnish off (I am still in doubt I have been given the stuff I wanted!) and he clearly shows his disapproval about my decision. I wait, after not long I start getting bored and I touch one of my nails, he looks at me in a “suppressed anger way” and suddenly moves away from his client and comes to me. He grabs my hand and in a manly way (as in, he hurts me) starts putting clear varnish on my not so nice nails ( I did manage to put my glasses on and checked the girl’s work, worse than mine!). Then, this time, orders me to put my hands into the infernal machine that cooks them. I oblige, as I am kind of worried of what he might do if I don’t), and smile, to everybody. Yes, all the clients are looking at me… At this point a new client comes in and I am asked to free my chair. Twice somebody comes to check my nails and on third time, I am finally given permission to leave. I get up to pay and I am busy looking for my purse inside my handbag, when I notice I have already ruined one nail! Unfortunately they do too!!!! I kind of panic, I can’t go through that again, especially having decided long ago I will take the nail varnish off as soon as possible…so I blether a “it’s fine”, pay and run out of the shop, before the man grabs me! Two doors along I find a small supermarket where I purchase a small bottle of nail varnish remover.

E.

This is what I had in mind…