Posted 7/31/2015 10:37 AM (GMT 0)
So today I felt super depressed and SUPER anxious. Was crawling in my own skin but had to get things done. I thought maybe getting a manicure/pedicure would be a nice little treat and I needed one, so I decided to pop into my usual place.
I roll in and I'm a little hypersensitive to my environment - and right away I decide this was a huge mistake. But I'm already in the chair with my feet in the water and I'm being urged to pick a color. Also, it smells like a weird combination of nail polish, alcohol and sardines. I'm nauseated and haven't eaten all day because I feel so crummy. So this funk is making my stomach turn even more.
I've been going to this place forever. And they know it's been a bad week vs. a good one based on how gnawed my nails are, and how badly I've picked at them (I'm really painting a lovely portrait of myself, I know, like you might find chicken bones under my bed. Which you might). Lately I've gotten crazy long fake nails because apparently I think I'm a Kardashian. And also I can't gnaw on them as much.
Now I'm notorious for taking way too long to pick a color and I usually change my mind like 5 times. I also change what I want, or end up getting something different. They know this. It's my thing. They put up with me because they think my little idiosyncrasies are cute, but also I think they think I'm a D list celebrity. My old headshot from the late 90's in on their wall from when I was in college which I signed for them after a particularly painful bikini wax. Sometimes I stare at it (my headshot, not my bikini wax) and wish I could go back to then, when I was young and fresh and had dreams and drive and all that....other times I'm just relieved I don't have that God awful hairdo anymore and that my eyebrows grew back in. Unfortunately today was a more moody day and I was staring at it and being a little dark and doing the "What has become of my life" stuff.
Just then this older German woman comes in and demands a manicure. She comes to my chair and snags all my gel color palettes from my table. Wow. ok. No big deal. Force me to make a fast color choice. Whatever. I'm so blasé I don't even really care. Paint my nails turd color for all I care. I kind of laugh and go back to alternating between zoning out and tending to pangs of panic that I'm trapped there. Then the German lady gets a call and starts swearing in German on the phone, and throws her phone against the wall! It doesn't break, but the case is cracked. Then she channels her anger at the girl filing her nails. Starts being super nasty. Another woman who I noticed earlier (I noticed her because she was twitching a lot, so I assumed she had tourettes syndrome but I came to learn she was probably just on a lot of drugs) tells the German woman to calm down. To stop being mean to her nail tech. The German tells her to mind her own business. The drama dies down and I go back to catatonic state of blah. Normally I would have taken it upon myself to defuse a situation like this. But I was in a complete state of "I just can't today".
Meanwhile I'm just sitting getting my nails done along with the most painful massage of my life (another big mistake) and trying not to throw up from the various smells mixed with my empty stomach mixed with my anxious belly and the fear that this German woman is going to chuck something again.
Then the nail tech accidentally cuts the German lady while she was clipping her nails. The german lady stands up and SLAPS the nail tech across the face. Whoa. ***? She starts screaming at her. Then the twitchy lady who I think is on drugs flies out of her chair. Then these two women start to TOTALLY BEAT THE crap OUT OF EACH OTHER. In the middle of my nail place. In a lovely part of West Hollywood. The staff at the salon have no clue what to do so one of them calls 911. Both ladies back off and are asked to leave the salon. (My awesome violent massage had ended at this point btw because I couldn't stand being touched anymore).
Oh, and the lady I thought was on drugs kept pointing at the German and screaming "5150!" over and over which kind of made no sense. She also had taken off her bra to get a manicure which in retrospect was super odd.
So the ladies are outside, and you can hear them screaming. And the nail tech locks the door to the salon. So now I'm locked in there. For a good 30 minutes. I'm trapped inside. Then the police come.
I don't really know why I'm posting this. I was so caught up in my own crummy feelings today that when this happened I didn't really process it. I sort of shrugged and wrote it off as yet another thing that would only happen to me. But now it's 3:30 in the morning and I'm wide awake because it's just dawning on me what happened! And I'm realizing that 1. that was totally insane, and 2. I felt SO bad that I was numb to a super dramatic cat fight going on in my nail salon that I normally would have really reacted to!
So I guess the moral of the story is that - hey! chin up, guys! Cuz- A. You could have been me today. B. You could have been the nail tech who got slapped today or C. you could be a very angry and abusive German woman with an incomplete pedicure.
So I guess life isn't THAT bad, and I pray for all of them!
(Thanks for letting me vent)