The pedicure truth extractor.
A couple of weeks ago, whilst on holiday in Thailand, my wife suggested that I get a pedicure and sort my toe nails out once and for all. I can’t blame her really as my usual treatment for a troublesome toe nail or one that just needed clipping was to just rip off the nail completely. The bleeding stops after a while and you don’t have to think about your nail again for at least four months.
So I gave in and joined my wife for a pedicure. Luckily, I had a lovely, petit young Thai lady with soft hands and a gentle manner to clip and prune my feet like they were well loved Japanese Bonsai Trees. It was, all in all, a calming and relaxing experience. I was definitely going to get another pedicure!
So, after a very long flight yesterday from Norway to Bombay, I decided to have another pedicure before I fly home. It was two weeks since the last one so this should be a quick nail trim and a caring massage on my little tootsies.
How was I to know it would be a man that was going to work on my feet? Alarm bells should have rung when I saw his uni-brow and large leathery hands. I swear, the way he dragged his knuckles on the ground, he was the missing link in a white uniform.
Anyway, he took me into his chamber and sat me down on the highest chair with a small foot stool in front of it. He then proceeded to fill a red plastic bowl with hot water. My eyes widened when he tested the temperature by dipping his finger in the water and then swore repeatedly as he waved his burned finger about. He obviously thought the water would cool down sufficiently during his walk back to me……..it was only three steps! I wrongly assumed he would add some cold water before he pushed my feet into the bowl. Wrong again! I bit my lip…….very hard and began tap dancing. You’d think he wouldn’t have to ask me if it was too hot but he did. My response was a scream of “AAAAAARRRG”, which obviously means “lovely” in Hindi because he continued to hold my feet in the steaming bowl.
It all went black there for a while but when I awoke my now swelling feet were out of the bowl. He was busy now working on my nails with his small snippers, pliers and a cheese grater. I tried hard to remember the wonderful experience I had in Thailand but now all I could think of was “where the hell is all that blood coming from?”
Even with all the blood, that didn’t stop him getting out a scalpel. He scraped and scraped at my hard skin until the already red towel under my feet looked like a four cheeses pizza. Aren’t they were supposed to stop long before they get to bone?
Now crying, he set about giving my legs and feet a massage. It wasn’t bad enough that his large and powerful shovel hands could rub my skin hard but he also dug his thumbs into what he called “pressure points”. Again, more blood, his nails needed a trim! It wasn’t shiatsu he was doing, it was thumbnail acupuncture.
By this stage, and remember this is a man who used to pull his own toe nails out, I was gritting my teeth hard and wishing I had some leather I could bite onto. I’d also begun telling him how the ALQ 144 Infrared Missile Jamming System worked on NATO helicopters and how I was solely responsible for bringing down building seven at the World Trade Centre on the 9-11 attacks. Without looking up and seeing my tear filled eyes and bloodied gums he says, “This is good for your health. It will help your circulation.” Well I certainly wasn’t having trouble bleeding.
Anyway, when he finished and I came to again, I had new feet…except they looked like hooves.
I won’t call this a pedicure. It was more like a CIA extraordinary rendition to a Black Site in Poland of a wanted terrorist.
