You a Little Cockeyed

Sometimes people have a way in getting in your head with the smallest little comment.  Recently I was getting a mani-pedi and my very sweet manicurist abruptly declared, “Your eyebrow crooked.  Right one higher than left one.”  There I was relaxing in the spa chair and suddenly I was told I had been wandering around town with a funky-looking right eyebrow.  Oh, the horror!  Her remark immediately evoked images in my mind of a silent movie villain cocking one eyebrow very high to signal the dastardly deeds he was planning. 

As I sat there waiting for my toes to dry, I couldn’t help but obsess and feel self-conscious about this hairy caterpillar that had taken over the right part of my forehead.  How could this have escaped my attention?  I came straight home and studied my eyebrows in the bathroom mirror for quite awhile trying to judge whether one side of my face was in fact higher than the other.  My poor husband even got dragged into my crisis of vanity.  I dared to ask him the loaded question of whether he saw anything wrong with my face.  Smart man that he is, he said no and quickly changed the subject.  Eventually, although not without considerable thought, I concluded that my right brow was even with my left and let the whole issue drop.  Maybe my nail lady was just looking at me from a weird angle.

At any rate, I didn’t really think about it again until I went back to the salon a few weeks later with a friend of mine.  As we relaxed in the chairs chatting with one another, the woman tending to my friend’s feet suddenly announced, “You need callous treatment.  Just $5 more.”  That’s when it occurred to me – we were living the Anjelah Johnson comedy routine. You know, the one that reduces all women I know to tears of laughter thinking about being slapped with backhanded compliments from the manicurist in order for the salon to make a little more money (if you're not one of the 21 million people who has seen the video, check it out!).  My friend and I exchanged a knowing glance and a quiet giggle and she paid $5 more to get the apparently much-needed foot sanding.

My theory is that the pedicure palace where I go must be feeling the pain of fierce competition from all the other nail places in town.  Seriously, there is one on almost every corner around here and I’m sure you’ve got to be cutthroat to survive.  I’ve been going to the same person for 8 years and until the “brow incident,” she had never commented on my brows or any other flaws that needed repair.  I’d never been offered additional pedicure treatments or waxing.  I simply went in, sat down, relaxed, talked about  life and our families, and left with lovely toes.  That was that. 

Now each time I go in, I wonder what’s going to be wrong with me this time. Thankfully, I’ve chalked it up to a business tactic and tried to not let it get the best of my vanity.  In fact, everyone I know is vain to some extent or else we wouldn’t be spending so much time in these places getting spackled, sanded, and painted.  If the manicurists of this world keep it up, I predict that our fragile egos will keep them in business for years to come.