Dinosaurs, Doritos & My First Pedicure

Dinosaurs, Doritos and My First Pedicure
By Jason Frye

I got a pedicure. There, I said it. I got a pedicure. I went with my wife and sat in the chair and this lady rubbed my feet and trimmed my toenails and used some horror-show cheese grater on a callus and it was awesome.

You might be saying to yourself, “So what? I get pedicures all the time.” That’s great, but you’re not me. I have a beard. I carry a pocketknife. I watch the UFC. I’m an Eagle Scout. I don’t get pedicures.

It all started one evening when my wife, Lauren, and I were watching The Bachelorette (ok, fine, I watch The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Project Runway, House Hunters AND the UFC). Out of nowhere, Lauren looked at my foot and said, “What’s up with your little toenail? It looks like a Dorito.”

She thought this was very funny.

Let’s get one thing clear. Yes, my little toenail looks like a Dorito, but only in that it is pointy and triangular (how else are you supposed to trim that thing?). Not that it appears to be coated with a delicious, but radioactive-looking, powdered cheese.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” I said, holding my foot out.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I can tell you that you have more cuticle than toenail on four of your toes. You need a pedicure.”

I rebuffed the idea with a snort. “Pedicure? No. Let me get my pocketknife and I’ll just trim my cuticles myself.”

“Not on the new couch,” she said.

Then, it was time for the most dramatic rose ceremony ever and I sat back down. After we saw that Emily sent home some googly-eyed weirdo, I turned the conversation back to my Dorito toe.

“Did I tell you about the time at Boy Scout camp…”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “Yes, you did.”

“New story. I promise,” I said. Then I told her about the time my best friend tried to grow his toenails out like a Velociraptor. Long story short, we were 16. He hadn’t trimmed his toenails in a while, growing them into a sharp, pointy “claw” until he ended up stabbing himself in the leg and drawing blood. The end.

As the story wrapped up, I said, “And that’s why I will get a pedicure with you – I don’t want to stab either of us in the leg with a Velociraptor-Dorito pinky toenail in the night.”

That’s how I came to be the only guy reclining in one of the six massaging chairs at the nail place. The woman came out with a bucket of instruments that included a cuticle-pushing tool that looked like a small crowbar, several clippers of various size, trimmers, and what appeared to be a cheese grater.

I cringed at first – it was weird having someone do things to my feet, especially with a cheese grater – but then, I got into it. It took a while even though I didn’t get polish (I know you were wondering) but still, my wife finished her pedicure first.

In the end, my feet felt great and I could wear flip-flops and not look like a Neanderthal. But, best of all, no one was (or is) in danger of being stabbed by a toenail in the night.