DCSIMG

Confused, breathless, fabulous!

Lee Redmond, whose nails hadnt been cut since 1979 and are listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, sustained

Lee Redmond, whose nails hadnt been cut since 1979 and are listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, sustained


Published on Saturday 4 February 2012 12:15

When it comes to my nails, I’ve always been a “keep them short, paint them black” kind of girl. But after seeing how nice my girls’ false nails all looked, I decided to have mine done too.

My appointment was at 10.30am so, naturally, I awoke at 10.02am. After the world’s fastest shower I stumbled out the door, half of my toast still hanging out of my mouth as I fought to put my arm in my coat.

So I arrive at the nail parlour place and the first thing I notice when I walk in is the complete lack of oxygen. They should have a sign on the door saying “Take a deep breath, it’ll be your last for a while”.

So I’m choking on what smelt like flowery petrol as I’m greeted by five pairs of eyes but not a single face, since they’re all wearing masks (masks?!). If it wasn’t for the 3,789 bottles of nail varnish I would have apologised for walking into the dentist and walked back out again.

I was gestured over to a chair opposite a masked woman who took my hands and began some kind of hand and nail inspection which made me worry that she’d mistaken me for a hand amputee patient.

My tension was evident, as I was told numerous times to “relax your hand”. Relax? We were fast approaching 15 minutes of no oxygen: relaxation wasn’t exactly on the agenda.

We got short bouts of oxygen though, since every 10 minutes women burst through the door holding up a broken nail and fighting the urge to cry.

My fears of hand amputation weren’t exactly settled when my masked surgeon proceeded to pull out some kind of metal instrument and began CUTTING AWAY AT MY SKIN. I have to admit I was a little alarmed to see my cuticles flying all over the place but I assumed it was normal procedure so I didn’t scream “STRANGER DANGER”.

After all the filing and snipping, the masked surgeon began sticking the tips onto the ends of my nails. If you’ve ever had your nails done, you’ll know the ridiculous length of the tips. If you haven’t, Google the woman with the world’s longest finger nails – they’re not far off that.

So I’m sitting there, with nails like Cruella de Vil, and the worst thing in the world happened: THE WOMAN GOT UP AND LEFT.

Yep. By this point I was very confused. Was I done? Is this when I leave? I hoped it wasn’t, my nails were about twice the length of my leg and I wasn’t exactly in a position to text anyone for help either.

Finally I’m greeted by a different woman who sits down and begins clipping away at my ridiculously long nails (don’t ask why it was a different woman, I have no idea).

At this point a small child with his mum decided that enough was enough and it was time to sing and dance. I found myself smiling as the reincarnated Elvis belted his heart out all the while my nails were being chopped and filed down to a suitable shape.

By the time I left the nail parlour I was feeling rather fabulous. My nails looked good and I’d survived.

All was well until I picked up a pen and discovered as pretty as my new nails were, they stopped me being able to do something kind of important to me . . . writing. Oops.

n By the way, I’ve set up a Twitter for my column-writing just in case anyone wants to Tweet me with opinions etc. It’s @KerryProvenzano


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Saturday 26 May 2012

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