gj Michelob -> A broken nail, and my first visit to a NYC Nail Salon (Mar. 14 2009 16:10:05)
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So I visited a Nail Salon. I had no choice. I was helping relocating tons of files from my office archives and –on the very last piece, as it is always ironically a classic- my index finger’s nail cracked half way across its media-luna where the nail attaches to the skin. Typically, I would sing a trilingual repertory of most degenerate vulgarities, in a fluctuating pitch, before zeroing all my nails at the “let’s start from scratch” level –not without a lowering cloud of sadness. But not this time. Instead, I visited a Nail Salon. In New York certain businesses are under some tacit ethnic monopoly. Nail Salons are almost entirely operated by Koreans, and these salons are to women what shoe-shines chairs are to men: a relaxing moment, perhaps twisted by a dash of vestigial cast-superiority, but ultimately part of a necessary cosmetic decorum which this city seems to snobbishly expect of its finer citizenry. However, cross-usage of the two NailSalon v. Shoeshine Chair, may send mixed signals of cross-trans-gendering tendencies. Or maybe it is just me. Salivation was absent as I approached a young lady who greeted me with foreign words I am certain did not translate “it is a pleasure to have you my most masculine sir” but possibly more along the lines of “who wants to deal with this sweetheart, girls?” I was so embarrassed, blushing and stuttering my intricate explanation of nail repairing needs for a classical/flamenco guitar player. I referred to this concept no less than 45 times in a loud and unusually deep voice, whenever any of the ladies sitting along the long corridor seemed to look interrogatively my way “I play flamenco Guitar, Classical Guitar” and I ridiculously gestured my left hand in the air hoping someone would notice the military disciplined shortness of those nails…. But although a psychological torture, unashamedly displayed by a street window I hope no one I know stopped to witness, it worked and did so quite wonderfully. I played hours with all my nails and will re-submit should it be ever be necessary again (of course next time I will grow a thick beard first, and wear plastic nose and dark shades).
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