Day 95: Again with the Toes

I was hesitant to post this because I just had a disastrous toe story a few weeks ago, and it makes me sound pampered . . . or cursed.

But I'll take the risk because my friend, Vicki, said, "You have to post that story."  And my soon to be daughter-in-law, Christina, said, "You have the worst luck with pedicures."  And my son, Zack, said "Where did you go to get your pedicure?  WALMART?  You don't have bad luck with pedicures.  That's like saying you have bad luck with haircuts but you get your haircuts at Fantastic Sams."  (Just for the record though, I have had some very good haircuts at Fantastic Sams . . .and some very good pedicures at Walmart) :) 

So, I thought I would tell you the story.

I went to Walmart to get a pedicure.  I've gone there many times and always loved it and my pedicures have lasted a really long time, so I went back.  I went on my lunch hour because it is never crowded mid-week and that means they take their time, which is always awesome.

Things were going really well during the pedicure.  My toes looked beautiful.   Then the lady asked me if I would like a manicure.  They were having a special for only $5!  (She also asked me if I wanted my eyebrows waxed . . . I tried not to read anything into that.)  Looking down at my fingernails, I realized a manicure was probably not a bad idea, so I said yes.

I should have been alarmed right away when the girl doing my manicure was suddenly surrounded by 3 people telling her (I'm assuming here b/c I don't actually speak the language they were speaking) HOW to perform the manicure.  During the process, she stepped on my freshly polished toenails!  Arghhh!

The lady who had originally done my pedicure, and who now was instructing the manicurist, looked down at my messed up nails and fussed at the girl doing my fingernails.  Then she walked over and got a little jar of fingernail polish remover and a paintbrush and brushed it on my messed up nail.  Fingernail polish remover ran everywhere, including onto my sandal that was on my foot.  Instantly, my foot stuck to my shoe b/c the polish remover was melting the waxy coating that was on my leather sandals!  I know this is hard to picture from the description, but picture 4 Nail Salon employees all bending over me, with horror on their faces, and me sitting in a rolling black office chair, with messed up toenails, and a sandal melting to my foot!

At that point, I had to move back to the pedicure chairs so they could PEEL my sandal off my foot and try to scrub (for 10 minutes!) the brown shoe dye off the bottom of my foot.  OUCH! 

After my toes were fixed (she messed up another one in the process of trying to fix the first one and peeling off my shoe) I went up to the man running the cash register.  He told me that would be $42!  "FORTY TWO DOLLARS," I said.  "For what? The mani-pedi special was $28!"  He said,"$28 for the mani-pedi and 14 for fixing two nails!"  For real, that's what he said.

I nicely explained that I was not going to pay them anything, but especially not 14 dollars for fixing two nails that THEY messed up.  AND they ruined my brand new leather sandal!  He told me he would deduct the cost of my sandals ($12) and that I would owe him $30 (which is still more than the actual cost of the mani-pedi!)

Again, I assured him I was not going to pay for the kind of service I had received, ruined sandals, glued foot that was rubbed raw, blah, blah, blah.

In the end, I prevailed and was able to walk away without paying.  =

All that to say, seriously . . . again with the toes . . .