A FEW WEEKS ago I was in North Carolina for a family wedding. We were staying in a big Air BnB farmhouse outside of Raleigh. I was walking barefoot when my sister, Charys, and sister in law, Stephanie (AKA Aunt Scary), noticed my toes.
"Ugh!" said Charys. "How can you stand them like that?"
Like what?
"They aren't as bad as your brother's feet," Aunt Scary said. "He says it's from years of wearing hockey skates that were too small."
They were right. The toenails were all different lengths and the nails on my pinky toe were overgrown. The toes themselves all slope in one direction - to the right on the right foot, to the left on the left foot. My big toes had sock gunk in them. Sock Gunk would be a great name for a band.
And my big toes look like ET.
"What you need," Aunt Scary said, "is a pedicure."
A pedicure? Isn't that where they buff out your feet and paint the nails with a glittery substance?
"Actually, it feels amazing," Charys said. "They clean your toes and then they massage your feet and the bottom of your legs."
OK. Now we were talking. Anything with the word "massage" has me interested.
"It feels sooooooo good!" Aunt Scary said.
When I got back to Quincy, I asked some of the Lab Brats about it. They said it was required stress relief. But there was conflicting information about where to go and how to go about it.
I looked up "pedicures for men" online. This was not a good idea. Both me and my computer got a virus. That got shut down right away.
Finally, I did the one thing I should always do when it pertains to self-care and thinking outside the box. I called Allison McElroy of The Whatevers. We'd been on a recent gig clothing shopping adventure. She knows all about this stuff.
"Actually, I'm overdue for a pedicure," she said. "I'll make an appointment."
Overdue For A Pedicure sounds like a great song title. Suddenly it was Saturday morning and I found myself at Jen's Nails out by Kohls. I got strange looks from the staff and the two women who were getting feets worked on. But when Allison walked in and they checked the appointment book, the workers started smiling and giggling.
"I like it!" one said.
"Feels so good," another said. Feels so good will be used a lot from now on. Let's just call it FSG.
Step one - pick your nail color. What? "I mean, we are here. You might as well get them done," Allison said. "Oh look. They have orange!"
Step two- sit in a massage chair. Yup. A freaking massage chair. FSG.
Step three - feet in warm water. The worker started scrubbing and cleaning the nails. Oi. FSG.
The other steps started blurring into each other. The worker took a cheese grater to the bottom of my feet. I am not making this up. A CHEESE GRATER. The worker had an evil grin on her face. I was prepared to be tortured.
Instead .... you guessed it. FSG.
Then she put soap on my ankles and bottom of the my legs and rubbed it all in and I about passed out.
"Are you OK?" Allison asked. "Oh look! That orange looks PERF on you!"
Yup. My nails were being painted orange. In honor of being Dutch, you know? The massage chair, the rubbing of the feet, the nails changing color - it was all so surreal.
By this time there were quite a few other customers getting feets done. There were more strange looks and hidden smiles. My brain was overloaded by FSG. I didn't care.
We moved to put our feets under a light to dry them. The worker said. "You will come back, right?"
That night we played at an awesome block party and I proudly showed off my buffed feets and glowing toenails. HUGE reactions. Next time Allison and I play I'm putting out a tip jar with a photo on it of my nails.
So go ahead and revoke the man card and all that silly stuff. FSG, baby. Don't knock it if you don't try it. You might really like it.
And you might go back. Like I'm going to do.
