COMPLAINT OF THE WEEK: French pedicures

You see some of the strangest things when you take public transportation in a major city, particularly when you take it on a daily basis for an extended period of time.

The 57 is actually one of the bus routes I frequently took when I lived in the Bay Area;

yay for Google giving me a relevant image!

Sure, there are the requisite schizophrenics, who have heated arguments with themselves while headed to their daily panhandling destinations. Not to mention the people who have absolutely no sense of self-control, combined with a lack of respect for personal space--you know, the ones who sit WAY TOO CLOSE to you and proceed to talk about a bunch of banal things that go right through your head (or, maybe completely bypass your head... once you've ridden public transit long enough, you don't usually really hear what anyone is saying; you kind of build a force field around you that lets you ignore pretty much everything, no matter how weird it may be).

Of everything you can see on public transit, probably my favorite activity was observing the increasingly questionable fashion choices the riders made. Typically, this involved some combination of neon colors, underwear-as-outerwear, and clothing that clearly hadn't been washed since 1974. More often than not, these dubious outfits were made out of Spandex--which of course left me wondering why on earth they'd make something out of Spandex in a size 4X.

How true. 

So one morning, many years ago (I think it was 1997 or something), when I rolled out of bed and staggered onto the bus to go to work, I was amazed when something I saw on the bus actually surprised me.

This woman, probably in her 30s, boarded the bus, clad in floral-print Spandex (for once, this woman happened to be size-appropriate for wearing Spandex, and hey it was the 90s, people actually wore floral-print Spandex sometimes, however mind-boggling that may be), and wearing gold lamé sandals that allowed her to show off her new pedicure. A French pedicure.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

GROOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSS

What... The... Fuck...?? My mind was completely blown by this. Little did I know that this woman was actually ahead of the curve in terms of nail fashion, and that this would become so ubiquitous in nail salons. Silly me, I assumed that this oddity, like so many others I'd seen during my people-watching on buses and BART (the Bay Area's light-rail system), was restricted to just this one woman, and it certainly wouldn't catch on! Ah, how naïve of me.

Nowadays, when you go to a nail salon for a pedicure, the esthetician typically assumes that you're going to want a French pedicure.

PEOPLE: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?????????????????????????

Seriously. I totally understand French manicures. In fact, back when I could actually afford such things, I had gel nails with a French manicure done every 3 weeks. It's elegant, and makes the nails look longer. I bolded and italicized this for a reason. Read on. 

See? This is my hand next to a cast of a saber tooth at the

Field Museum in Chicago. 

Awesome museum, by the way. 

I know there are millions of people out there who absolutely LOVE how French pedicures look. Well, good for you. But again, I ask: WHY? If the entire point of a French-style nail is to make the nails look longer, why in the HELL would you want to make your TOENAILS look LONG???? 


I just don't get it. Never have, probably never will. I also know my opinion probably won't change anyone's mind on the matter, but seriously, why on earth would anyone ever want to create the illusion of long toenails? Long toenails, whether intentional or due to negligence/laziness, are disgusting. I'm pretty sure most people agree with that... right? So why actually pay someone to carefully decorate your toenails in such a fashion that your nails appear long...?


There's very little that I'm sure of in this life, but this I know for sure: If you ever happen to see me with a French pedicure, I will a) have gone completely insane; b) have someone pointing a gun at me and forcing me to have it done; or c) have been offered an insane amount of money to have it done, as some sort of weird dare. Feel free to offer me obscene amounts of money to wear a French pedicure for a week or something... but it'd have to be a lot of money for me to even consider it!