Overheard at the nail salon...

There really should be a website like "Overheard in New York" that's totally devoted to the conversations in nail salons, because in my rather limited nail salon experience, I've eavesdropped on some humdingers.

Take today, for example. My daughter's poignant critique of my toes had me jonesing for a pedicure. So, I snuck off during lunch time to have my toes did. There's a very stereotypical cheapo salon near my house run by people of the Asian persuasion. I've been there a couple of times before, and remembered that although they do a pretty good job, they have a lousy magazine selection, so I took my new book on Nancy Cunard, and planned on immersing myself in it.

I got right in to a chair, and this very slight, very fem Asian guy was my pedicurist. To my left were a guy and gal who were both getting pedicures as well. They were there together, and I couldn't tell if they were friends, a couple, or what. All I know is they never shutthefuckup the whole time they were there.

Horribly cheesed out soft sounds of the 80s and 90s were loudly playing including "Endless Love," "We are The World" and some Michael Bolton and Celine Dion. It must've been some sort of CD mix (as opposed to the radio) because there were no commercials, and my pedicure dude kept singing along under his breath as if in a trance. Poor guy, you know this was probably the 3 millionth time today that he'd heard this ghastly mix. At one point, a Bee Gees song came on (surprise!), and the late 40s school-marmy looking lady to my right (who was getting a manicure) starting asking her manicurist if she'd ever heard much about the Bee Gees. The manicurist politely said no, but I'm not even sure she understood the question. At any rate, this lady starts going into this long, very detailed history of the Bee Gees...talking about how they're from Australia, and that there were four of them, and that the youngest one--Anthony--had his own career outside of the others but had died of a heart defect. I mean, she had her shit all kinds of wrong. I kept wanting to scream out: "Heart defect?! Hell no! It was that coke whore Victoria Principal that he was banging at the time. She got him hooked on coke and then he had a coke-induced heart attack! And his fucking name was NOT Anthony, it was Andy, and I LOVED HIM!!" But somehow, I controlled myself.

Ugh. I only managed to read like four pages of my book because of all of the wretched music and inane conversation. If I didn't think it would be insanely rude, I'd wear my iPod while getting a pedicure. But that would be as big of an asshole maneuver as talking on your cellphone while you're cashier is checking you out at the grocery store.

But hey, at least my toes look a helluva lot better.