At last!

Today as soon as Phil got home from work I quickly dashed off to the mall for a cheap, unscheduled pedicure.  Having attempted this twice in the last month--and been defeated by very long wait times--I told Phil that I'd likely be gone for over an hour at the very least.  Then I debated with myself over whether or not to take the book I'm reading.  In the end, I decided not to take the book when into my head popped the image of the salon's huge stack of beauty / celebrity magazines.  Ahh, the idea of an hour to pour through mindless dribble about clothes I'll never wear and teeny-bopper celebs I don't even recognize sounded so relaxing . . .

When I got there they were slamming with customers, all pedicure stations were booked, but the Pollyanna in me thought that on the bright side there'd be an "extra" twenty minutes to peruse the magazine dribble.  I saw a magazine in the hands of one patron: she was a healthy women who'd sausaged her body into the pedicure-massage chair and had her balding head nosed into Cosmo (at first glance you'd take her more of a Taste of Home reader).

So then, mistaking her for the sort that didn't actually purchase Cosmo, I assumed that all the magazines were over there, between she and the other pedicuree.  Alas!  When I tiptoed over there, and answered the funny looks I received with an explanation of what I was doing, "I just wanted to grab one of your magazines", the salon owners replied, "Oh yeah, we don't have them anymore . . . now you bring your own".

Well, now the wait had lost all allure.  While, I could sip my mocha and spend twenty minutes choosing a nail polish, that was not the relaxing dribble I sought . . . my predicament did not go unnoticed: one of the nail techs approached me with a book in hand, "The Kidnapping of Courtney van Allen and What's-Her-Name" for very-young adults (if the title didn't give it away).  This nice man was so pleased to have something for me to read, that I had to read it, or at least make the pretense of reading it.

Dutifully I thanked him profusely, and and looked at the cover: two girls talking on the telephone.  Arrgghhhh.  This would teach me not to do pedicures myself.  But, then again,  what else was I going to do.  Well, a (speedy) ninety minutes later my nails were done, I was relaxed, Courtney and What's-Her-Name were back with their families, and honestly, even though the book was written for fifth graders, it is always nice to finish a story in one sitting.