Wag Gag

Last night, Alicia, my sister-in-law, and I had one of the most memorable nights of our lives. What we shared last night will mark our friendship in an unforgetable way for as long as we know each other. In honour of my birthday and because she is heading to Florida for Christmas, Alicia found an excellent deal on Wag Jag and bought a manicure/pedicure for both of us. It advertized a shellac polish and offered hot beverages with a special treat as part of a very attractive holiday package for two. We were both looking forward to a couple of hours of peace and pampering.

As we pulled into the dim parking lot of the plaza we found the unlit sign of the salon. The windows were dressed with dollar-store Santa Claus stickers placed with five-year old precision all over the glass. Alicia gripped the steering wheel and said, "Marge, it's so ghetto. What do we do?" Thinking it couldn't be that bad, we walked through the door only to have the sketchy nature of the place confirmed even more. Half a Christmas tree with its top cut off was perched in the corner. For ornaments, they had creatively tied lip gloss to the branches. The floor was unswept and two of the walls were mere frames. The ceiling was short a few tiles and those that remained were brown from water stains. Adorning the finished walls were purple butterfly stickers and life-changing quotes such as "Dwell in Possibilities". Still, one should not judge a book by its cover nor a salon by its complete lack of decorative sense.

The lady behind the counter immediately advised us that they were behind schedule and that unfortunately, they only had four colours available in the shellac: mint green, blood red, goth black, and lilac purple. Generously, they offered us a normal polish or the option of rescheduling in the new year when they would have more selection. We decided to stay and work with what they had. We sat down in the only two chairs and were asked to fill out a form. A lady came out with two empty mugs, plopped them down on the end table and told us that if we wanted coffee, we could make it ourselves. Since we weren't really in a do-it-yourself mood, we skipped the hot beverage and continued with the forms as we waited for half an hour.

I'm not too embarassed to admit that I have a little bit of discolouration on my two big toes. I asked the mug lady what she thought and she summoned the nail specialist. A lady as tall as I am but 10x as wide came out to take a look at my toes. Her orange T-shirt was stained and untucked from her pants to allow space for the substantial belly that hung over her brown corduroy pants. Placing her hands on her knees, she hunkered down over my bare feet until I could only see the top of her bleached short hair and gruffly announced, "Yep, that's fungus. No pedi for you." Understanding her concern for the pristine conditions of the place, I agreed to a manicure only.

As we continued our wait, Alicia whispered, "Man, I hope it's not a 14-year old working back there." Upon saying this, a four foot, extremely young looking girl walked to the front and asked us what we were waiting for. I think she was a dwarf. Between the beefy nail specialist and pint-sized aesthetician, I wondered if we had inadvertently walked into a circus. I could barely contain my laughter as Alicia slowly turned her wide eyes to me and asked between clenched teeth, "What do we do?!?" We stayed.

Finally, we were beckoned to the back and seated ourselves in some classy wicker patio furniture. We had chosen our colours from a wide variety of 20 Shopper's Drug Mart polishes. I went with a festive, sparkly clear polish and Alicia chose a dark purple for her pedicure. My first clue that they didn't know how to do nails was the "Paint Your Nails by Number" book on their table. My second clue was when the girl pushing my cuticles back said, "You know, I don't really do nails."

Behind me, the beefy lady had placed Alicia's foot unto her lap on top of a previously-used towel after soaking her feet in the previously-used basin. As the lady buffed the bottoms of her foot, Alicia calmly said that she didn't want any razors or cutting done to her feet. Beefy lady said, "Oh no, we don't do that here. They only do that in chop shops." By the time she got to Alicia's second big toe, beefy lady threw her hands in the air and said, "I can't do this. Dwarf-girl*, do you know how to do purple?" So, Dwarf-girl took over and beefy lady sat down to tell us stories of pedicures past about old ladies with so much rancid fungus under their nails that she would have to shovel it out.

Once finished, Alicia realized that she only had her boots to put back on over her painted toes which quite truly were "painted toes" because the polish didn't stay within the lines of the nails. Concerned, beefy lady grabbed a hair blow dryer and solved the problem. After scalding Alicia's skin, she pressed her finger into the polish to make sure it wasn't tacky and left her finger print behind. Since words cannot capture the true artistry of Alicia's toes, there is a picture of the final product below.

Alicia walked bare foot to her car and I drove but not before losing it completely. We could barely compose ourselves so surreal was our experience of the last two hours. Thank you Wag Jag and the choppiest shop of all for the Wag Gag. In both senses of the word, it was an appalling and amusing memory that I will always share with one of my favourite people in the whole world.

*not her real name