we're not in Sao Paulo anymore

Today Jimmy's mom watched Mac while I went to the dentist for my semiannual cleaning. I dropped off our inherited car for a new set of tires enroute to the dentist and called Jimmy's mom after the dentist was done so she could come and pick me up. Mac asked to stay at Bubby's house longer and Bubby agreed so I ran errands.

Around lunchtime, I called to check in and was granted permission to stay away longer, so I decided to have a manicure and a pedicure. But the problem was that I didn't know where people in the know have this done in Moncks Corner. So I went to the first place that I saw and kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn't get a fungus from implements that aren't sanitized.

My last mani-pedi was 2 weeks ago tomorrow on our last day in Brazil. They used some spectacularly red polish because we agreed it was "happy red" and I needed a good dose of happy red at that point. I had already removed the red from my fingernails because every time I looked at them, I thought I should be employed in the night. But the red was still going strong on the toes.

The technician's first question as she was removing the red was whether I had given myself the pedicure (there was a lot of red). So I told her no, it had been done in Brazil. Now I know it's hard to remove red polish but you use a little elbow grease and it comes off. I know because there was none left on my fingers. She apparently was fresh out of elbow grease because she left red all around the cuticles. So I thought she'd be revisiting that later.

But no.

When she got to the point of painting, she told me she couldn't use my selected white polish because the red would show through. To which I wanted to respond, "the red wouldn't show through if you'd remove the red properly." But as it's been years since I had a manicure in the US, I thought maybe they're not as detail-oriented as the technicians in Brazil. This lady also told me I needed pink for summer. What? Again, I went along with it because I didn't want to be difficult, so now I have a hideous pink on my toes - think the pinkest Easter dress pink you ever saw a little girl wear and that's what we're talking.

To top it all off, I paid more than twice what I paid in Brazil for expert mani-pedis and nobody even offered me a coffee and little cookies like you get in any nail place of any quality in Brazil. Let's just hope I don't get a fungus to boot!!