A Half a Toe is Better Than No Toe

My husband bought me a gift certificate to get a hair cut and pedicure for mother’s day…a very thoughtful gift since my hair was a mop and my toes rivaled an ogre’s.  I enjoyed my afternoon in the spa very much with one exception…could the wee lass who was artistically tidying my feet not stop talking??  I had sat myself down in this luxurious (hey, I’m used to the floor surrounded by toys) chair and immediately grabbed two or three out-of-date magazines – eager to catch up on the entertainment gossip as I hadn’t read a magazine in months.  The fact that they weren’t “out-of-date” to me was doubly exciting.  The young tart who was friendly and pleasant managed to tell me her entire life history – neighbourhood, parents, sibling, niece/nephews, friend’s wedding/hotel they stayed in, boyfriend/boyfriends moms occupation, etc, etc, etc…

I silently begged her to notice my white-knuckled grip on my magazines…I even opened one on my lap and occasionally glanced at it…to no avail.  Incessant chatter to a new mom who only wants an hour or two of peace to relax, read something mindless and get herself cleaned up is like your own small corner of hell (albeit a comfortable, pretty one).  I survived the experience and floated out of the spa with swaying hair, glossy toes and uptight shoulders…two out of three isn’t bad I suppose.

Are you wondering what this has to do with “half a toe”??  I’ve not been back to a spa since this day, although there have been many tearful mirror conversations that wish I had.  I hung on to that pedicure “gloss” for as long as I reasonably could as my toes hadn’t looked so nice for a LONG time…and then I waited a few more weeks.  You know, if you’ve had your toes done, that you realize that it would be time to paint a fresh coat on…a little of your nail is showing at the bottom of the gloss..nothing you can’t get away with as “cuticle”.  A while later, you notice that your cuticle is going on half an inch wide but try to explain to yourself that unless you look intently at your toes, it just looks as though your nail bed is a short one and the flesh starts a bit higher.  A while beyond that and in fact you begin to wonder if you left it just a bit longer, could you get away with calling it a reverse French pedicure…do they do French pedicures in burgundy??  This is my life…who has time to paint your toe nails with a baby toddling about?  I hung onto that pedicure for as long as I could until dignity finally won out…actually, it wasn’t dignity at all (that left me in the final trimester of pregnancy) it was a husband bringing me the polish remover and a cotton ball with a promise to send me to the spa again…for the love of all things glossy.

Tracey is an urbanmoms.ca member and mom who really needs to get back to the spa! Share your thoughts and fun spa stories below, in comments.