I've been getting pedicures for more than 20 years. My excuse is that I require regular diabetic foot care. I used to get them years and years ago for $10 at the Old Folks Recreational Centre on Brunswick Street. Then, I moved-up to a clinic staffed by a professional with a Bachelor of Science in Pedicurology and paid $50 plus tip. Now, I am going to another beauty salon. Because I am a senior citizen, they charge me $40 and I leave a $15 cash tip.
Women started invading the barber shop about 20 to 25 years ago. I'm just evening things out in the name of equality.
In the old days, barber shops had Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler magazines and the barbers talked only of politics and the weather. Now, more than half the barbers are women and the reading material has been reduced to only The Prince George Citizen.
I do find it funny that, in a beauty salon, nobody says anything. The female staff are dressed in smocks and wear face masks and rubber gloves. The female clients have nothing to say. They look forward, expressionless, into empty space. Sometimes, they may glimpse at Dr. Phil being broadcast on the flat-screen television set mounted on the wall. They offer their hands and fingernails to the professional and they hold hands in eerie silence. Nobody looks at anyody. They are all silent. It's a factory where talking is not permitted. The women are being serviced" in silence.
I'm not at all embarrassed by these circumstances. I'm retired now and much too old to be embarrassed. Besides, I like the big, comfy, leather chairs which include an electric back massage and the bubbling, whirling, refreshing turquoise water of the spa basin in which I dip my feet.
One thing that I do not like is the toxic fumes consisting of paint thinner, lacquer thinner, acetone, and other miscellaneous dangerous noxious odours and smells. For that reason alone, I attend as early in the morning as time permits hoping that the fumes have subsided overnight.
Harry Yates
Prince George
