Ho! Ho! No!

I made a big mistake today. A big, expensive mistake.

The three of us planned on getting manicures today, as a little celebration for finishing the school year. Here, you can get your hair shampooed, cut, and perfectly styled for $7-$10, so naturally, we thought it would be cheap to have our nails done. We walked into a place and I told her what I wanted. She held up 8 fingers and I thought she said it would cost $8. Woah. Even better than I thought. She got started...

I looked around and noticed extremely large numbers on all the signs. As in, $800 and $900. I began to get a little worried. My hands started sweating. Did she really say 8? Jessica asked again how much her manicure would cost and the lady said $23. So I begin to think maybe she said $28 instead of $8. Now that sounded more reasonable.

TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER....

She finished. I am not exaggerating. It really took her this long to file and stick on some dumb tips. In the process, she made me bleed three times and I had to jerk my hand away from her multiple times as she smashed and pinched my fingers WITH PLIARS. I don't know that I have ever felt such accute pain as admistered by another person. And, she kept doing it even when I asked her to stop. Each time I started bleeding, she acted like there was something wrong with me, but she filed so much I was suprized my fingers weren't nubs. But, the worst pain was yet to come.

When she finished, I handed her $30. She looked at me and held up 8 fingers and said the price again. Does she really mean that? $80?? I nearly lopped off my hands and left them on the counter rather than pay that. For $80, I expect to get an artificial limb.

To cut my losses, I decided I am going to offer 1 minute backscratches for $1 each. At that rate, I only have to scratch about 50 backs to make up for my loss. Or, maybe I will offer to scratch and peel stuff off of tables for a small fee.

Well, Merry Christmas to me....for the next 4 years.

Not even worth it.