Toenails For Love

        The old saying, "a happy wife means a happy life," translates as; hey husbands, keep your spouse pleased, and you might receive some lovey-dovey, hanky-panky, and silence during the football game. This also includes begrudgingly perform tasks to be able to experience little favors in return. Going to a chick flick and buying her women's hygiene products at eleven at night in a convenience store may be part of the deal.

My wife finally coerced me into going for a pedicure because she couldn't take the constant jabbing of my toenails in bed. I resisted as long as I could until she used the threat of “no sexy times” for me. She tried to insist on how enjoyable the treatment can be, and other men have to go, "Baloney, no man would be caught dead in one of those joints," I'd say. The moratorium on snooky-nooky turned out to be my new reality, so off I went to Ms. Kim's Salon.

If the word got out in the neighborhood that I went to a nail shop, the menfolk would be whooping like a bunch of crazed zoo monkeys. I entered the establishment and quickly scanned the place to see if I recognized anybody. My wife acted like a kid in a candy store. "Honey, you can get your hair cut and a mani-pedi all in one visit," she enthusiastically announced to me and all of the other patrons. My preconceived notion of the place smelling like feet and polish removal chemicals was not validated because tropical flavors permeated the air space.

I lowered my baseball hat, and Ms. Kim took my arm and sat me in a reclining chair. This turned out to be no ordinary recliner; the unit had a built-in tub for the feet, a massage remote for assorted vibrations and heat. I sunk into the big comfortable throne, with the salon girls giggling as I submerged my size thirteen feet into the warm water bathtub. Sitting next to me were other women, except a teenage boy getting his feet worked on. I asked him if he got dragged in here too, but before he had a chance to answer, his mother chimed in, "he likes this outing."

I couldn't whine that this didn't feel comfortable and soothing even though I knew this was a trick for me to return. My pedicurist handed me a glass of champagne, sweet and cheap, but I slurped the bubbly liquid down anyway. I sat back and pondered, we as husbands are not supposed to be pampering ourselves with beauty products and getting dolled up. We are hunters, not dancers and prancers. As the experience progressed, I felt pain, some laughter, and almost tears when the tools were used on my tender toes.

Fortunately, a smattering of men's magazines to choose from laid on a rack, so I asked for one and diverted my attention to a sports publication. I thumbed through the articles until I became locked on to a piece about a guy up in Alaska who was a six-time dog sledding champion. There is a big race every year where dogsledders from all over the world enter this thousand-mile trek across the Yukon. I was in awe of these frontiersmen who endured this odyssey for a meager prize and free Alpo.

The journey from the nail shop to the parking lot in disposable flip-flops to secure my clear acrylic became a hideous spectacle that Linda found to be humorous. I thought about those guys in the great white north bundled in parkas and boots when I sashayed in flimsy little sandals to my car. Oh well, we all can't be Commodore Perry who explored the Arctic. Some of us have to be good husbands no matter what it takes.