Every day last week, I had something to do, with the exception of Thursday, and then at some point last week, my department scheduled an after-work happy hour for Thursday, so there went that. The thing is, it started at 4:00, but I had tons of work to do, and then next thing you know old Jed's a millionaire, and also it was 5:10 and by then I didn't want to go to the now-winding-down happy hour, and I was once again free to be you and me, after all.
Whenever I find myself in the rare evening with nothing to do--and I don't want to BE this person, okay? I don't wanna BE the person with somewhere to go each day after work. I live six minutes from work. Do you know how nice it'd be to be home at 5:06, sit on my porch swing and read till the sway of the porch swing made me sick?
Never happens.
Anyway, whenever I have the Hope Diamond of evenings, that rare evening when the night splays out before me languidly, my first instinct is to groom. Which may I just mention means I'm STILL not home reading on my porch swing, in case you hadn't picked up on that, Sharpie.
"I don't think I'm gonna get to that happy hour," I told The Guy Who Sits Next to Me, who is always working industriously, unless he takes time out to hear me complain. "Help me pick out a manicure color."
The guy who sits next to me is married, and therefore is practiced at indulging women. I conjured up the OPI website, which is nice enough to show you its gel colors. Down with OPI! Yeah, you know...my!
There's no room for relationships, there's just room to hit it.
I wish that had been my motto with this nail polish, because wait till you hear this tragedy.
"I like the first three on the top row," said The Guy Who Sits Next To Me, who was probably bored after the first row. "Which one out of the three?" I asked him, and no man should ever have to sit next to me.
We settled on Taupe-less on the Beach, and I headed to my nail place, where they've hired this new bitch named Steven, a fact that cracked me up, because of course it's The Guy Who Sits Next To Me who introduced me to Phteven, the dog.
Was dying to text The GWSNTM about this hilarious coincidence, but do not have his personal number, because that'd be weird.
The point is, Steven the manicurist was a ho. Oh my GOD, with his attitude. "Pick a color." He slapped all the colors in front of me. When you get a gel manicure, instead of having you go over to the rows of polishes to pick your color, they instead give you these wheels with nails at the end.
The fact that there is an entire blog devoted to nail polish gives me hope for the world.
Anyway, he gives me this whole basket full of fingernails on a wheel, and there's a thing you find yourself saying often. But as soon as he handed them to me, he picked up one hand and dunked it in the water, like he was an Asian, bitchy Madge with his Asian, bitchy Palmolive. So then I had to pick at the colors sort of one-handed-like, till I remembered I knew what color I wanted, anyway.
"I know what I want," I told him, as Steven jerked my hand about. The whole time I was there, he kept yanking my fingers around. Sixty-eight years I been getting manicures, and not once has anyone...manhandled me like that.
"I want an OPI color: Taupe-less on the Beach." I thought I was infinitely helpful, knowing which color I wanted. This, however, threw Phteven into a tizzy. He walked over to the colors, his hands thrown up helplessly on either side of his cranky head.
Seven hours and three other manicurists later, he came back with my polish. "I almost told you to pick another color," he groused.
That was about the time I should have left in a huff, but it was my one free to be you and me evening, and I was so looking forward to having gelled nails. You gel your nails, you have nice Taupe-less on the Beach nails for a good two weeks. It's fantastic.
Yeah.
Fantastic. Here, friends, is what I ended up with. This color is the color of an old lady's Velcro shoe. This color is the color of a Band-Aid you find curled dolefully near the shower drain. This color drains me of the will to live. This color, I fear, was NOT Taupe-less on the Beach. It's Hopeless on the Beach. It's Your Hand Just Washed Up On the Beach and the Rest of You is In a Shark. On the Beach.
It's instead the worst color in the history of time. Even Ned was all, Do you have to touch me with those old lady nails? (Answer: Yes. And you'll like it. Sonny. Now, help me take out m'teeth.)
Gropeless on the Beach.
And note how I've been chewing my cuticles because I'm stressed out at work. My new color, Sereneless on the Beach, only serves to accentuate my chawing. Goddammit.
It's 100% the fault of The Guy Who Sits Next To Me, who, oddly, has requested a new seat assignment.
