Scott gets a pedicure, sustains injury

One night just after I’d turned 18, my Mom, the nurse, was examining my foot while I sat on the floor in our living room. I don’t exactly remember what it was she was checking out, but I think it was either an ingrown toenail or some form of a blister.

Before she bothered to examine the injury, the thing that actually mattered, she decided to have a fit over how disgusting my feet were. They were very calloused from the abuse they were constantly taking from me lumbering around playing too much basketball and not sitting still reading enough. There was also a section on the arch of my left foot where an entire layer of skin had painfully ripped off, for reasons I’ve never figured out.

“You should get a pedicure,” she said, and I laughed, because, well, I thought she was joking. Dudes don’t get pedicures. She wasn’t joking, at all. And, when my Mom gets a notion, she immediately develops tunnel vision and can talk about nothing else. For the next few months, she would continuously mention in passing how nasty my feet were, and she’d then try to sell me on the merits of getting a pedicure.

“It feels awesome, really” she’d say. “And your feet are so smooth when they’re finished.”

I’d refuse, time and again. Not because I was that worried about doing something effeminate, but because it’d be pointless. I was in the middle of basketball season, so getting my feet smoothed out would’ve been like shaving my legs or something. Sooner rather than later, they’d just be back to normal, which is to say: ugly. Also, I could not have given a fuck less about the aesthetics of my feet. Long as they were there and functioning, I was golden, because then I could keep playing basketball. This was important, because at the time I loved basketball, and also because I suspect it was at least a contributing factor to why females would talk to me. In that order.

After the season, I relented. I told Mom I’d go with her one time, and never again. So she would shut the fuck up. Back then, I used the same approach to haircuts. I figured I wouldn’t like it, and so I’d have no desire to do it again.

She took me to a salon, where she still always goes to hang out with her friend, Marlowe. They shoot the shit together much like men are supposed to do in barber shops. There’s a good chance I know more about the intricacies of Marlowe’s daughter’s life via my Mom than I do about my own younger sister’s. I am okay with this, because ignorance is bliss. Also, my sister is a saint, and so there’s nothing I need to know...

I don’t remember much about the pedicure, to be honest. I’ll admit, it was enjoyable after I got past the ticklish feeling I had initially when a woman was fucking around with my feet — for the first five minutes or so, I was unable to read the Glamour magazine I’d picked up from a coffee table in the waiting area on my way to the pedi-seat. I left thinking I wouldn’t rule out ever getting one again; I figured someday a girlfriend or fiancee or wife might want to go get one as a bonding exercise, and I’d acquiesce without much fuss. This would surely buy me a guys’ night or something. I did decide it wasn’t something I would pay to have done, and it also wasn’t as great as having a woman wash your hair for you. But, then again, neither is sex. For me, the hair washing usually lasts longer, so.

What I’m saying is, the pedicure itself wasn’t a bad experience. The after-effect, however, was.

The next morning, I woke up and got in the shower. I started shampooing my mop and probably singing Fall Out Boy or some shit. The first time I attempted to move, I was bending over to grab some face wash. I took one step, slipped, and almost went headfirst into the faucet. Luckily, though (I guess), my foot kept sliding forward until it rammed into the end of the tub and my torso shot back and my body tried to gain balance. A flash of pain shot through my groin.

For the next few days, I hobbled around like I’d just been snipped, smelling of Ben Gay, all because I got a pedicure. My feet were too smooth to gain any traction in the shower, something my Mom had warned me about but I had not thought of because I can’t think about fucking anything at 7 a.m. When I was able to run around again, I got blisters where my callouses used to be, and they hurt. Eventually, I had the same rough patches of skin in the same places, and they looked worse than they did when my feet were fresh and unscathed, but they were also part of me. They’re still there today.

There is a reason parts of us get worn, that callouses exist to cover up the soft spots. Once they’re there, leave them there. If some lady buffs them off — whether it’s an Asian at the mall or your Mom’s good friend, or, more likely, a deceitful whore — you’re only going to end up having to build them back up again. It hurts each time, too.

And, sometimes, if you’re really unlucky and don't protect yourself, flashing pains in the groin area may be involved.



***[Thinly veiled public service announcement encouraging condom use in a blog entry about pedicures? Nailed it.]