"You should get your nails done Ellen, you've got really pretty hands."

"Are you smoking crack, Sona?" I said as I looked down at my very scarred, scratched hands.

"No really! You have long fingers, they would look great!" she beams, oh-so-subtly looking at her own acrylic tips.

Hmmm...

So there I am at 5pm inside *Glamour Nails*, sitting in front of this young Asian girl. She's wearing a lime green BEBE (BEBE... clothing designer... no, really... hello?... are there any straight men in the world who keep up with these things?!?) rhinestone shirt, which provides a bizzare "Asian-bird-flu-can't-stop-finger-fashion" counterpoint to her plain surgical mask, expertly pawing through a box of nails and choosing what sizes match my fingers. She rarely speaks.

"How long?" ("ow'wrong?'") she looks at me.

"Huh? Oh. Not very long, I have to be able to function."

"Dragon Lady nail?" ("dagonradynil?")

"No dumass," I think, "I have to be able to wipe my ass, wipe Olivia's ass and wipe cat asses at work."

"No thanks," I say out loud, "I would like them this short," pointing to just over my fingers. She snorts (in an accent... I can't explain it but she did) and gets to work.

As I sit there with this girl gluing nails to my fingers I people watch. There are some ugly people out there. I see older women getting pedicures in these gigantic, made-for-only-pedicure chairs that vibrate when you sit in them. *Note to self -- get pedicure next time so I can soak my feet and sit in that chair.*

I watch some women get escorted rather quickly to a mysterious back room, only to emerge a few minutes later with redened upper lips and eyebrows. Well, those were the things that I could see. Some of them walked funny too... *shudder*. Only once did I hear a 'yelp'.

BEBE girl works quickly. She wets my fake nails with a lavender solution, then dips a brush into a magic powder and voila! instant acrylic on a brush, which she then proceeds to paint on my "new" nails. After all of this, she then gets out a dremel tool and starts sanding and buffing at a never ending fast pace. And to think all this time Scott was wasting his power tools on his car!

I space out again. Is that ATB (gah... ATB... c'mon folks... ATB? ... techno pop? anybody? anybody? is this thing on?!?) playing? Hadaway? Aqua? Am I in Japan? Everything is so cute, bubbly, happy... must be the acetone fumes... please let it be the acetone fumes. I'm not sure what I'll do if I find out I've suddenly had a heart attack and heaven is actually the anteroom to a Japanese anime theater.

BEBE girl paints my nails in this deep, flashy holographic garnet color called "La Boheme." Yes, it was that dramatic. I half expected a Parisian peasant to suddenly burst out of a closet belting Puccini. With "hello kitty" ear-rings of course. God-damn this acetone.

I never saw a person 'stab' a bottle of nail polish before. This girl got the biggest glops of paint on that brush I have ever seen. Then she instructs me to stick my hands under an ultra violet light for 10 minutes ("Youstickhandinright. Holdfohtinminit!"). I'm done.

"Well? How do you feel?" he asks.
"Um... my hands feel sexy?" Sexy? Is that all I could come up with? My fingers look lots longer and are awfully cute now.

Now just to keep them up.