(un)happy feet

If I were remotely entrepreneurial, I would start a business of toenails-only pedicures. Surely I'm not the only person out there who desperately wants this service? I want my feet to look presentable in the summer months, but having somebody scrub at my feet with what is essentially a sandpaper block is something I would classify as physical assault if it was happening outside the spa-service realm. It tickles to the point of extreme pain. I feel every muscle in my body tense up as I white knuckle the chair arms while they assault me scrub my feet. If I had something to chew on, like a teething ring, I'd be gnawing for dear life. If I could paint my own toenails without getting nailpolish up around my kneecaps, I'd be doing it -- trust me.

My pained body language is apparently not enough to convey my extreme discomfort with this process, and there seems to be a bit of a language barrier that prevents us from understanding each other, because whenever I'm getting a pedicure, they assume I want more, not less, in the feet prodding department. They assume I want a total body experience, which I do not. Case in point, the massage chair:



Note the tears in the massage chair control cover. It's torn because people like me, while being aggressively bucked, stretched, and rolled by the chair, frantically poke at it while mentally screaming "oh for the love, how do you turn this damn thing off?!?!?!" And then the nice lady looks up from my feet, notices me poking at the control panel and says "you want higher?" NO! I want stillness! When I finally figured out how to turn it off, she looked at me sadly, like she'd personally failed me. I almost wanted to turn it back on just to make her feel better, but there was that motion sickness thing . . .

I can never seem to successfully communicate that I really want the absolute bare minimum that will allow me to walk out of there with decent looking toenails. That's all I want. Leave the feet to me. I am sure I'm in the minority here, but I can't be alone. If any local friends know of a . . . minimalist . . . pedicure experience, please share!