I had my very first pedicure today. I mean, sure, I’ve done my own for years, but I’ve never paid someone to do it for me. It was an experience I have very mixed feelings about.

Despite my love and lust for fashion, and despite my all-consuming (and inherited from my mother) vanity, I’m pretty low-maintenance. I don’t really get regular haircuts, and when I do, I tend to go to those cheapie places, get it done, leave with it wet, and get out. Only about twice a year do I “treat” myself to a “real” haircut with the fabulous Mona, and even then, I feel slightly guilty about it. The salon is so lush, and she treats me like a celebrity, or at least, someone important… and that’s a bit weird for this stay-at-home urban mom. And yes, I do get my nails done, but again, I do it on the cheap. I go to the really inexpensive place where they have me in and out of there in less than half an hour. It’s no frills, no entertainment, basic maintenance. Did I mention it was cheap?

But today, I decided that my feet are just too nasty and too rough and frankly, too far away from my hands for me to deal with them anymore. So, knowing myself well enough to know that I am more ticklish than the average toddler, I succumbed to temptation, put myself in the chair, and let a stranger mess with my feet.

Did I mention that I’m VERY ticklish? So much so that my husband approaches every square inch of me with caution, knowing that it’s likely his romantic advances will lead, not to romance, but to me laughing so hard and so uncontrollably that my weak bladder is pushed to its very limits? Are you getting the picture?

I sat down, literally holding my breath as the technician picked up my feet. And then I got tremendously embarrassed. I do shower on a very regular basis, and I do trim my toenails and do all that normal sort of maintenance thing. But do you have any idea how utterly humiliating it is for a virtual stranger to be sitting at your feet, cleaning out your toenails? *shudder* I have no idea how much she gets paid, but I can assure you, it isn’t enough. No amount of money could convince me to sit with a stranger’s disgusting feet between my legs, while I pried old dirt and dead skin from under their toenails.

We got through all of that, and I did relatively well, alternating between bouts of intense shame and hysterical laughter… and then she brought out the pumice. (For the men out there, a pumice is a tool used to slough off dead skin. “Slough off” means get rid of. And yes, gentlemen, you really should slough off dead skin.) She raised my foot out of the dreamy-warm whirlpool bath and started scrubbing. On the BOTTOM. Where I’d rather die than let someone touch me.

I lost it. Here’s me, 41 years old, supposedly owning at least some dignity, wife of a successful man, mother of two… giggling hysterically. Big, whopping belly laughs. Tears running down my face. And that was BEFORE she actually touched me – that was merely the suspense, the knowing it was coming. Once the pumice made contact and the sloughing began, everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing and was staring straight at me. I simply couldn’t stop laughing; it tickled that bad.

We eventually made it past the sloughing, I gathered up the last of my shredded dignity, and she began the massage. Oy! It was, finally, too much. In the end, I’m sure I skipped a full half of my pedicure. I simply couldn’t bear it.

The upside of it all is that my feet look so pretty! They are soft and clean and shiny, and my toenails are VERY clean, and painted a nice spring pink.

I can’t say for certain whether I’ll do it again. I do think, however, that the poor girl who was forced to deal with my nasty feet, my braying laugh and my hysteria may run when she sees me coming. Heck, she might quit her job altogether and do something infinitely more pleasurable, like sell used cars.

Oh, the price of vanity!