The Mallpisode

I was at the mall today, and I had just given the jewelry repair guys a watch to resize. I had twenty minutes to kill until they finished, so naturally I wandered, in search of other things to blow my hard-earned money on.

I passed one of the many kiosks, and made eye contact with a woman who stood beside one. I knew immediately this was a mistake, and though I tried to break the gaze it was too late, and she beckoned me over.

"Can I show you something?" she asked me, and I assumed it'd be some kind of beauty product, and though I initially began to politely decline I did have time to kill, so at length I agreed and went over.

I should say that my decision to agree was influenced somewhat by her extreme cuteness. That is rather than being "hot," she was beautiful, in that subtle way that totally kills me in a way that a typical Hollywood starlet cannot even approach. "Girl next door," they tend to call it, although I find the phrase rather lacking myself. In any case, she was mad attractive so I figured I didn't have much to lose talking to her.

Digression: I wonder if there's any sort of profiling that goes on here. That is, did I A.) look like someone who needed better grooming or B.) look like an attractive and modern young man that seemed as if he would appreciate whatever she was selling.

Perhaps it says something about me that I assume it has to be one or the other.

In any case, she took my hand and though I expected her to rub moisturizer on it, she only took one finger and began to rub it with something strange. We talked idly about our origins, Greek for me and Romanian for her.

After a while she said, "okay, I'm going to show you something now, you will hug me and kiss me, please try not to scream too loud in mall." She removed her hand from mine, and I saw that my fingernail was polished. Now when I say polished, I don't mean it was kind of shiny. I mean I could literally make out my goddamn reflection.

I'm not the type to react extremely to things that don't involve Optimus Prime or Luna Lovegood, and I didn't want her to be disappointed and tried (with little success, I feel) to express my surprise.

Another digression: I am, as becomes very apparent very quickly when you know me, pretty girly. I think this needs no further exposition. But to be perfectly honest, I have not once looked at my nails and thought, "man, I wish these things were shinier." In fact, it took several hours for me to look down at the thing and not feel terribly embarrassed. More on that later.

She finished her demonstration by cleaning up my cuticle and applying a rather nice moisturizer. I do like moisturizer because I have dry hands but I hate when I can actually feel it but this one dried quickly and was pretty damn soft. In any case, I know she's about to try and make her sale so I start to back out.

She knows I'm on the fence, and I say I'm gonna think about buying the whole package deal and come back but the gambit fails. She tells me it's usually 80 bucks, but it's on sale for half price (I seriously doubt it's ever NOT on sale, especially when she shows me some sales chart. It's a common tactic, I respect it but ignore it). I politely decline, and she goes "you know, I like you, I give you even better price. Don't tell anyone in mall, this is secret, okay?"

Now, I'm not stupid. I know they'd rather lose 10 bucks than the whole sale. I've always sympathized with kiosk runners because it's gotta be pretty damn hard to get people to buy your junk. During the whole negotiation endgame, I saw her glancing occasionally, very quickly, to a man on the other side of the kiosk, who I can only assume was her boss.

There are a few things I really respect. One of them is people who give themselves completely to their job, perform it to the best of their ability. I'm sure this poor girl had things she'd rather be doing. She is 22, almost 23, and she has to try and convince people who were just walking by her to instead drop a few ten spots on some beauty supplies. Plus she's probably got this guy on her ass to make sales, and damn if she didn't try her hardest to make some A-class small talk with me.

And you know what? Sometimes, it's worth 30 bucks and some fancy moisturizer to make a pretty girl smile, and maybe make her day a little bit better. There, I said it. Does that make this entry straighter at all?

No, probably not. It's too far gone.

Which is why I feel comfortable adding this epilogue: I may not like the idea of having really shiny nails, but the idea of having only ONE is unbearable, especially since I'll be at work on the weekend and my hands will be clearly visible to a lot of people.

So I used that buffer thing, and shined the rest. Not a LOT, not nearly as much as the first one, but they look pretty uniform at first glance. I gotta give this thing credit, it works in about a minute and it works well. I can't figure out how she got my cuticle all nice-looking, though. I guess I still have much to learn.

Why do I love telling embarrassing stories about myself so much?

Anyway I probably wont be blogging for a while, my fantastic new nails will likely ensure that I am getting laid nightly now.