In my last post, I wrote about a trip to the salon to get my feral hair tame enough to enter civilized society. As you may recall, I was very impressed with the result. So you know what I did today? I went back!
No, I
didn’t get another haircut. I’m saving that for my (temporary) return to the
Land of the Free next month. This time I got a manicure.
“A
manicure‽ You? Who are you!” I know, I know. I hear you. I surprised myself, too. Hear me out. My
hands looked and felt terrible. They hadn’t been that bad since high school,
when my after-school activity was scrubbing pots and pans and washing three
hundred-ish senior citizens’ dinner dishes. So I thought, Why not?, and used
my lunch hour to go make an appointment.
I went
in and walked up to the counter. A woman wearing a black t-shirt printed with
the name of the salon, the same outfit as the rest of the staff, asked me how
she could help me. (Sidebar: I am very
impressed by matching t-shirts. This is not a sentiment limited to places of
employment. Also encompassed are t-shirts printed to identify the members of
large groups visiting amusement parks together, to proclaim affiliation with
History Club, to commemorate participation in an athletic tournament, you name
it. I know it’s cheesy, but there you
have it.) I told her I wanted to schedule an appointment for a manicure, and
she said, “Right now?”
I
answered, “No, I’d like to come in tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?
What time?”
I
hesitate. “Umm…”
“Right
now?”
“No, I
think… uh… hmm….” This is not something I had bothered to think about before I
came in.
“Right
now?” She sees that I’m weakening. “It only takes half an hour.”
“Well…
ok. Right now is good.” I check my phone to make sure. “Yes, right now.”
“Here,
she will take care of you.” And she passed me off to a black t-shirted employee
standing nearby.
“Hello!”
the second woman greets me. “This way please.”
She leads
me into a little booth near the back of the salon and sits me down. “My hands,”
I begin. “My hands—they’re really bad.”
She examines
them. “Yes, they’re very bad,” she reprimands me. “You pick at them, don’t
you?”
“Yes,” I
admit sheepishly.
“When is
the last time you got them done?”
“Well…”
I start, pretending to think. I know the last time was in middle school at some
classmate’s thirteenth birthday party, and even then it was really just the
color. But I can’t tell her that. She’ll write me off as a lost cause and send
me packing. “It’s been years,” I decide to say. True enough.
She
looks at me knowingly and gets to work rehabilitating my crone hands while I
enjoy the extravagance.
Now, I
know I’ve complained that there are certain comforts found living in the United
States that are not available here. For example, the apartment does not have a
dryer. In the heat of the summer, this was not an issue, but now that the
weather is changing, clothes take about three days to dry fully. The stove
shocks us consistently. Central heating is the stuff of legend. The electricity
cuts out fairly regularly, as does the water. The weeks I stay in Qurghonteppa,
I have to leave the dormitory and go outside to a separate building to use a
bathroom shared by eight (?) people at night and thirty (?) people during work
hours. People I barely know tell me it’s about time I got married and started
producing uterus fruit, and sometimes the police want me to give them my
passport. Poor me, right? Wimpy little snot.
Anyway,
these are all minor inconveniences that I knew were possibilities/probabilities/eventualities
before I came out here, and these are the things that I’ve told some of you
about. However, what I’ve been quieter about is that I also live in opulence.
“You’re just saying that because you got one manicure and now you think you live in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.” Not so! Let me explain. Here, I enjoy many things that are either out of my reach or reserved for special occasions back in the States. For example, two weeks ago I went to the Marine Corps Ball. At the most expensive restaurant I ever go to, I spend ten dollars to feast on vegetable curry and garlic naan, and I get to take leftovers home. So I eat Indian food three or four times a month. My bed is a blanketed monstrosity, not some little twin in a college apartment. I go to the bazaar, and then the kitchen is stocked with fresh vegetables. I meet people from all over the world. And you know what else I did recently? I’ll tell you. I took a dress—one that was in danger of smelling permanently like a certain Dushanbe nightspot—to the dry cleaner’s. Now, maybe I’m revealing myself as a weirdo with dirty clothes, but I generally consider a tag that says “Dry Clean Only” to mean “Never Needs to Be Washed Ever YAY!” I do not think I am alone in that interpretation, though it’s possible I am. I don’t think so, though. Anyway. I brought the dress, the nice people took it, and then the next day it was fresh and clean. What riches! What abundance!
Ok, so
now you know I’ve been misleading you in my declarations of deprivation. The
next time I start to whine about my feigned destitution, just throw everything
I wrote now back in my face. Back to the manicure! So. I’m sitting there marveling
at my Weird Sisters-y claws morphing into the refined hands of someone who actually
takes care of herself, while also making a pretty successful attempt at salon chit-chat—a
victory of its own. The manicurist finishes up salvaging my damaged nails, but
she doesn’t let my hands go. Holding me in place by the metacarpals, she earnestly
looks me in the eye and chastises me, “Stop picking at your nails. Stop biting
them, too.”
“Ok,” I
promise, cowed by her authority. “Ok, I won’t.”
“Good!”
She is satisfied with my response and helps me put my coat on so I don’t smudge
my not-quite-dry nails. I walk out admiring her work and vowing to take better
care of my hands from here on out. As I walk up to the main road to catch a
shared taxi back to work, I think to myself, Gee, my neck sure is itchy!
So,
yeah, that lasted about five minutes.
