An essay about disfunctional people, how I like to laugh at them, and a picture of my pretty red toes.

On Saturday afternoon I escaped to the nail salon to get myself a much needed pedicure and "me" time. I was boy-less so I felt all relaxed as the water bubbled over my feet. I sighed a lovely sigh and noticed that three generations of women were sitting at the drying station together in front me. A grandmother sat in a chair with her mouth hanging open, a middle aged woman sat next to her (which I'm assuming was the old lady's daughter), and a five year old girl with a bad attitude (daughter and granddaughter, I'm sure) sat on the other side. These women became my entertainment as I got my pedicure. I just adore people watching and do it with no shame. Yes, I am a shameless people watcher.

The grandmother dosed off and slowly slumped over. This caused her to smudge the drying nail polish on her hand. She woke up with a snort, held up the damaged nail, (that just so happened to be her middle finger) and called over a grumpy Asian man to fix her nail. Her daughter (the middle aged woman, if you're slow) said "Put down your middle finger mom!" and looked around the room blushing.

Just as soon as the Asian man had fixed Granny's nail, the five year old grew impatient and tapped her fingernail to see if it was dry, causing the polish to smear. "Mama, my nail got messed up!" she announced as the man trudged over to fix her nail too. The middle aged woman rolled her eyes and scolded her daughter to leave her nails alone. This caused the child to erupt into tears and yell "You don't love me!" at the top of her lungs.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Granny was dosing off again. Her hands fell into her lap and smudged her nails, she grimaced and shot the bird into the air again, waving her damaged middle finger and exclaiming "Oh no, I done it again." The man trudged over to fix her nail for a second time and the middle aged woman fussed at her Mother to keep still. A few peaceful moments passed and just when I thought that the show was over, the little girl stood up to grab a mint from a candy jar beside her and messed up the nail polish on her entire hand.

The middle aged woman became incensed and starting yelling at her daughter even louder to sit down and stop messing up her nails. This woke up Granny yet again who looked shocked to see that her finger was messed up for a third time. I laughed out loud as Granny flipped off the entire salon by accident again and all three of them looked up and gave me the stink eye. At that point I realized that I was openly staring at them and pretended to read a Cosmopolitan magazine in my lap.

The entire cycle of nail smudging, nail fixing, fussing, waking up Granny, uncontrollable tears, and general madness happened three more times before they all gave up and left the nail salon in a huff. The middle aged woman led the angry brigade out the door and screamed about the fact that she was never taking either of then to the nail salon again. The little girl followed closely behind and was crying so hard that she was drooling a little bit and blubbering. Granny shuffled out of there with her hands waving in the air and blew on her nails in a panic. I suddenly became very happy that I have two boys.

The End