The Importance of Well Kept Hands

Every fierce diva should have well-cared for hands. Let's face it: "Diva" mixes with motoroil or garden dirt under ragged fingernails about as well as, well... Howard Stern's mouth and a bar of soap.

One of the things I most love to do is go to the nail salon. After a busy week of writing until all hours of the morning for my career, taking care of three active boys, catering to my family, packing lunches, and wiping runny noses and dirty rears... I love to just sit in a spa pedicure chair with the massage/heat feature running full tilt and have my finger and toe nails pampered by the highly skilled hands of a couple of manicurists.

For that 90 minutes, I feel like a queen...

...until they start speaking Vietnamese behind my back.

Well, I guess I can't even say "behind my back" because it's right in front of my face and I KNOW they're talking not just in front of me, but ABOUT me... and I'm sure most of what they're saying are not the nicest of things. Otherwise, they'd say it all in English.

My plan is to buy the Vietnamese lessons by Rosetta Stone and learn the language forward and backward so when they're saying "fat ankles" and laughing about my Gandhi foot calluses, they aren't able to pass it off as something kind.

They always smile sweetly while they speak the mother tongue, but in my mind the conversation goes something like this...

ME: Can you please take them a little shorter? Thanks.

They both nod and smile.

#1 Manicurist: (vietnamese) Who she think she is Paris Hilton?

#2 Manicurist: (english) She say she like ring.

ME: Thank you. It was a gift.

They both smile.

#1 Manicurist: (vietnamese) Ugly gif from ugly man.

#2 Manicurist: (vietnamese) Fake, too.

#2 Manicurist: (english) She say, look very espensif.

I smile.

#1 Manicurist: (vietnamese) Gumball machine.

Manicurist #1 starts massaging hot oil on my right calf. She turns my leg to see a small red "mole" on the back of my leg.

#1 Manicurist: (english) Lucky mole.

#1 Manicurist: (vietnamese) What kine disease this bag lady have?

She shows the tiny benign mole to Manicurist #2, who looks at me and smiles.

#2 Manicurist: (english) Lucky mole. In my country, red mole, lucky mole.

#2 Manicurist: (vietnamese) Good thing you wear gloves, your hand fall off from that.

Smiles at me.

ME: Yeah, I have those darned things all over. Red specks. Irish skin.

#2 Manicurist: (english) Lucky mole, you get very rich.

#1 Manicurist looks at mole again.

#2 Manicurist: "Red speck" -- right -- red mountain more like it.

#1 Manicurist: (vietnamese) She turning into Elephant Lady.

#2 Manicurist: (vietnamese) She give elephant disease to ugly man who give ugly gumball ring.

They both laugh. I smile.

I smile and nod not knowing what they're saying, but trying to be gracious.

They both laugh harder.

#2 Manicurist: (english) Yes, my country, lucky mole get very, very rich.

And so the conversation goes for the duration of the appointment while they insult me every which way and I smile and nod and speak sweetly to them.

Imagine their horror one day when I get up to leave after 90 more minutes of this type of treatments and say "Same time, two weeks?" in perfect Vietnamese...

Divalicious!