International Pedicure

In a gender-normative society, my experiences has been that most men do not think about getting a pedicure. Long a fan of breaking gender norms, I have, for several years, been tentatively interested in pedicures, but up until recently, have not pursued this new experience.

Up until recently.

While preparing for our trip to the NACADA Region 8 conference in Vancouver, B.C., Canada the other week, a number of my colleagues started to plan a side-adventure to get pedicures, and asked me if I would be interested in joining.

After walking a not-absurd but somewhat far distance from the hotel (it was like, 8 blocks or something, so like, half of what I walk to work everyday), we walked into the establishment. It smelled like nail polish, which I find to be not an unpleasant smell.

First up, we collectively chose our colors. Getting my toes “done” was enough of a new thing for me, I stuck to a solid, masculine color. Black, is what I mean. Or liquid leather, as the label read. We all read our color names, and I learned a lot about nail polish names. Mostly that they are not the color they actually are, but some fun name variation.

A photo one of my colleagues took of my pedicure experience.

Then we each sat in our massage chair with a foot-bath at the bottom. I put my feet in the water and it was hot. It took me a few minutes of in-and-out to get my feet comfortable with the water temperature. The massage chair did its massage chair thing, massaging and stuff. The pedicurist started the pedicure. It has been a few weeks, so I do not remember the sequence, but there was definitely a sandpaper-y thing that tickled a bit, a bottle-opener thing that removed the dead skin from my foot, a 1920s torture device that cleaned my toesies, and a few other things.

I perused the magazines sitting on the table next to me, there was a selection various North American celebrity gossip rags that seemed to have been published either around the Oscars or sometime in the middle of last year. I did not really understand what was happening in them. Many seemed to be similar to skateboarding magazines in that the content was mostly based around ads, with a few articles or magazine sponsored photoshoots interspersed.

Awkward smile, because at this point I was kinda confused and did not really know what was going on.

After the cleaning of my feet was complete, the pedicurist brought out these tiny flip flops that barely fit on my feet. I was the only of my colleagues to get pink ones, so that was fun. My toes were painted, then I was moved to this bar-like space that has this light that dries toe-nail polish. We had to split into two groups and I was in the first group, so we waited while the other half of our group had their pedicures.

All-in-all, it was a pretty cool experience. I have to say, I really love having my toenails painted. I think it is kinda fun to come home at the end of the day and take my shoes off and be all “oh hey my toenails are black! that’s fun!” I would not go out of my way for another pedicure, but if an individual or group asked me, I would likely not say no.