Losing

I get my groceries delivered - you know, cause I'm a princess - and I knew they were coming between the hours of 2 and 4 pm today. I've been up since 7 watching season 1 of Quantico on Netflix, but I figured if I could tear myself away from it by like noon, I would have plenty of time to run up the ave and get a pedicure and be back in time for the delivery. Any later than that and it wasn't gonna happen because by then, the shop would be packed.

So it's a little after 12, I'm walking into the salon. I go there all the time so the new chick is the first thing I notice. The owner asks where my daughter is today so we're chopping it up, the whole time I'm thinking in the back of my mind I do not want the new chick. But Mari, my regular girl was giving a manicure and the owner had gone back to watching Youtube or some shit with her earbuds in so I knew her ass wasn't working. It was either wait or take the new girl. Mari tends to have a lot of Saturday appointments too so waiting could leave me stuck. I'm at the wall picking my color, sighing all kinds of hard in my head, but I turn around and smile as Rookie Rita goes to start the water. She's going back and forth getting all the tools ready and I'm walking slow as hell across the room like it's the green mile, just knowing this is not gonna go well. I tried to stay positive though; she might not be so bad.....

Who are we kidding? The new chick is always bad.

But I sit down, put my earbuds back in and grab the controller to start the chair massage. Rita grabs a pad and starts removing what's left of my nail polish. I immediately look up because she's moving soooooo slow. I thought something was wrong with her. Then she grabs the nail clipper and starts to clip the nail on my big toe. When I tell you this woman clipped bit by bit, I mean she clipped like 16 times. ON ONE TOE. I just lean back in the chair and look over at the clock. 12:18

The next time I look up at the rookie, it's because she's filing the tips of my damn toes. It happens sometimes when you get your nails cut short and the worker isn't paying attention, but that shit was starting to burn. She moved on just before I said something but it wasn't long before I was looking up again. Now I'm just watching her. Now, I appreciate somebody being gentle with sharp objects on my skin but this woman was moving so slow and doing everything so softly, you had to wonder if she was concentrating. I don't know about nobody else, but if you have to focus that hard, I don't want you or your sharp objects anywhere near me. The lady next to me started laughing when she saw how I was watching the girl. She was watching her too. You couldn't help it, that shit was just unreal. Rita looks up, nervous, and says in spanish that she doesn't want to hurt me. The lady translates and we both laugh as I try my hardest not to roll my eyes.

I peeped a sign that said the callus remover was $8. I've had that before at another place but checked with Rita to make sure it was what I thought it was. Of course, she didn't know. So she asks Mari and Mari explains to her in spanish what it is. Clear that Rita had no clue, Mari explained to me that it was what I thought and I told her I wanted it. Rita panics. Mari's like chill, I got you. Me and the lady next to me just shake our heads. I don't know why I didn't get up at that point, but I figured I had sat that long, I might as well ride it out. Mari is working on the woman next to me by the time it's time for the callus remover. She talks Rita through how to apply the gel on the soles of my feet. Mari walks away for a second and this chick is massaging the gel into my feet, like it's lotion. Now it was a long time ago when I had this before but I was pretty sure I didn't remember them doing that. Mari comes back, I shoot her a look and she runs over to Rita like noooo, no, not like that.... Jesus. She ends up reapplying the gel, unwrapping the one foot Rita already did and redoing that too. I had been sitting about 5 minutes before I looked over at the clock again. 1:35 - WTF?

So now it's time to pull the saran wrap off my feet and scrape them with the paddle. Of course Rita doesn't know what she's doing so Mari is talking her through. She's running the paddle across my foot like an emery board. Lady, you just shellacked half a bottle of goo on a foot that ain't seen the inside of a nail salon in 2 months, you gotta get in there! The woman beside me is giggling again as Mari tells her in spanish she has to do it harder. She does go a little harder, but not much, and by now I'm irritated. "You want me to do it?" The lady next to me is really laughing now but I'm ready to walk my ass out the door, gooey feet and all. Mari grabs the paddle and starts going in. "Like this," she says to Rita. Rita's looking at me and I'm looking at her while Mari's standing, straight laying into that heel, skin flying everywhere, lady next to me cracking up off the look on Rita's face. She was fucken mortified LOL. Mari hands her the paddle back and she clearly didn't understand because she was still sitting, trying to file, and not making any headway. Mari's like "Harder! Harder!" Rita's about to lose her shit. I think she was really trying to put some elbow into it but just not enough and before any of us could blink, this bitch was crying. Real tears, yall LOL [In spanish] "I don't wanna hurt you! I don't wanna hurt you!" Am I in the gotdamn twilight zone? LOL

Mari asked the lady she was working on if it was okay if she finished the callus part and came over to sort me out. Rita didn't even look embarrassed, she just looked like she wasn't at all here for that shit. But she took over again once Mari went back to the other woman and by then, all that was really left to do was polish my nails..... which took 15 fucken minutes. I wouldn't even believe it if I wasn't the one in the chair, SMH. I paid the owner while Rita was doing the final strokes and left her the $3 change because I kinda felt bad, but when she said she was done, I was done. The owner's pointing to the fans like "You no dry?" Nah, bitch. I no dry. It was 2:23 when I left. What pedicure do you know takes 2 gotdamn hours? Luckily, my phone hadn't rang, so I knew the food hadn't come yet.

By then, I was starving though. Figured I could drop in the pizza shop, have them heat up a slice while I ran around the corner to the store and came back for it. Get to the pizza shop, it's open, but nothing's ready yet. 10-15 minutes, he says, for pizza. I don't have 10-15 minutes, so I'm like fuck it, I'll just grab a couple empanadas at the store. Go to the store, pick up my shit, start to eat one of the empanadas on the way back to the crib, this shit empty. WTF is this???! It was supposed to be a cheese empanada but I didn't taste one lick of cheese until the second to last bite and that was the ONLY bite there was some cheese in. I was too annoyed to even turn back around. I knew the best place for me at that moment was home, waiting for my damn groceries. I shoulda sat my ass in the house like I was doing, watching Quantico and being great. I bet I don't leave this house again this weekend.

Out here, losing. smh