We’ve all had experiences that catapult gut reactions. Typically, the gut will scream out at us and warn us that what we’re about to do something stupid… or that we’re getting ourselves into a sticky, weird or dangerous situation.

The gut is like your Mom… if you will. Always looking out for you. Slightly annoying (love you Mom) because sometimes it goes against our impulsive desires to do something crazy in any given moment. And lastly… the gut is always right. We’re always grateful we listened to that gut. Or pissed that we didn’t. The only difference between a gut (ew that word is making me mildly nauseous) and a Mom, is that a gut won’t say, “told ya so.” Just kidding Mom, you never say that. Just with your eyes. sometimes.

You’re probably wondering where all this gut talk is going.

I was in Philly this past weekend for our friends’ [amazing, beautiful, awesome, delicious] wedding. Photos to come in a later post fo sho.

I noticed on the way down that I failed to get my nails done, and had a 3 week old cracked fiji thing going on. I had to do something about it. Luckily, we were hanging with friends, one of which, Kate, was in the same fingernail status boat.

SO… we used a little handy dandy thing called the iPhone, which ushered us along the bustling streets of Philly to this little nail salon under a bridge. Based on the neon signage in the windows, we agreed that if it felt seedy we’d bounce our non-manicured nails out of there and opt for plan B. We walked in and it seemed just fine for a last minute mani.

SO, ya know how you go in and totally zone right into the color racks, trying to select at rapid speed whilst the manicurist is scowling at you to hurry your ass up? There we were, totally zoomed into the plethora of colors, obsessing over which hue would accentuate our get-ups for the next few days. Once I finally chose my color, No More Film, (great color btw), it was go time. I was seated now and allowed my focus, and senses, to shift around the room.

The first thing that caught my attention was this gasping-for-air cough of a child taking place in this little room off to the side. It was so loud and disturbing that it quickly threw up a red flag in the not-so-clean department of things.. but whatever.. it’s in the back and maybe the kid is sick…

Kate was next to me, trying to conceal her uncomfortable laughter at the lung hacking in the back, as was I. Moments later her gal came out and said, “Watchu want, Babe” in this high voice?! It was difficult to understand this oddly phrased question, so Kate politely asked her to repeat herself and she said it again… “Whatchu want, Babe”, with an emphasis on the Babe part, which was just for some reason awkward, odd, and funny. Kate requested a manicure, and so the cute woman sat down and got started with her thang. At this point we were quietly laughing to each other about the overall silliness of the situation, but that was it.

As Kate got started I focused on my ‘nail table’ for the first time… I almost hurled. I look down to see the manicure table covered with nail clippings and disgusting-ness… Suddenly, like a clap of thunder, my gut screamed out to me like, “holy shit. something is totally off”…. just as I was about to give Kate the hi-tail signal, I saw that her manicure was in progress and there was no way out. A friend never leaves a friend behind in a situation like this, and so I just decided I was going to make it be ok.

I was still waiting for my manicurist to come out and ask me what I wanted, Babe… but when a totally less than clean, 65+ year old man slowly limped out of the coughing room, red flag numero dos shot straight up in the air. He had on a black polo that probably hadn’t been washed in a guaranteed 10-12 days. His belly stuck out to accentuate the area of the shirt which was covered in food, and he had long, gnarly fingernails. I wouldn’t be lying if I explained that he had food in his teeth and on maybe even some on his face…. he certainly didn’t take pride in his own personal hygiene.

He sat down and from his little desk took out the basket-o-tools. He lifted it up in the air and attempted to spray them (all at once) with a spray bottle. Upon leaning in, I saw that the tools literally had accumulated cuticles on them and just looked plain horrific. After I heavily gagged, all that came out of my mouth was, “JUST POLISH. JUST POLISH”. I usually have trouble speaking up for myself, but when that gut says so, and even more so, my health is on the line, I have to force it. Like I said, I wasn’t leaving Kate, and so I decided I would simply have him apply polish to my nails and then get the eff outta there. I gave Kate the “just get polish” eye, but it was too late. She was sucked in… her girl was much cleaner… but nonetheless, it was too late…

At first, the elderly man (let’s call him Bart), wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was coming at me with those infested, non-disinfected nail tools. I said it at least 2 more times, “JUST POLISH. I JUST WANT A POLISH CHANGE”. He finally agreed, even after Kate’s “Watchu Want” Babe insisted that I should go for the full on manicure. Bart agreed to polish my nails and I had a huge sigh of relief.

Let’s let the next 10 minutes roll by and fast forward to the part where I have my eyes closed, wishing for this moment to be over. Thank the nail polish heavens, because he made some sort of grunt, insinuating that it was finished. I opened my eyes and saw nail polish all over my fingers. My dog has given me a better manicure. I didn’t care though. I was done. Once he saw me notice the out-of-line scribbles that were the polish on my hands, he mumbled in a pissed off tone that he’d fix it. I insisted that it was fine and I was finished, but he took my hand and gave me no choice. Ok, so he’ll stick that stick with a cotton ball on the end into some remover and go around the edges. Fine.

Nope.

He takes his long thumbnail, which is longer than I’ve ever been able to grow mine, Nailtiques and all, and dips it in to the remover, which was squirted into a cotton ball from a clear, browning, plastic dispenser. He proceeds to take his lengthy, dirty fingernail, dripping with remover, and trace it around my nail beds in efforts to remove the excess polish. The polish was, I kid you not, on the tops of my fingers, around my cuticle, and maybe, some on my nails. For what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes, he scraped the excess stuff off… and then sent me on my way.

Kate and I sat at the nail drying station in shock. We paid and left while our nails were still super soft and totally not dry. $6 later, that was quite honestly the worst, but thankfully, cheapest, manicure I’ve ever had. Kate and I laughed our way across the street en route to the hotel and then made a sharp stop only to notice a glistening, airy nail salon in front of us.. just a few doors down. yeah. oops.

PART II.

I’m going to say this part really fast and only some of you will catch it…

The rest of the story is that I fell down the stairs later that night after the beautiful, fancy rehearsal dinner… at the Bellevue.. down down down the stairs.. I totally broke my thumb nail half way down and acquired a large, unsightly bruise on my arm. SO embarrassing. What made it worse? Yours truly started crying, and the tears didn’t cease for at least another 20 minutes during our walk home with a plethora of family and friends who were just at the dinner. Go madds.

This isn’t to say that the day wasn’t super fun and the rehearsal dinner wasn’t beautiful, delicious & awesome. Just a few minor blips along the way. As I type today, my nails still have remnants of No More Film on them. A constant reminder of Bart, the manicurist.

If you got nothing out of this post and think my story was unnecessary and annoying (after all, it was a lengthy set of words focused on a shitty manicure), don’t complain. I suggested a great new color for you to try out. Go paint those nails.