The Mother of all Pedicures

Every year about this time, as the days wind down leading up to our annual beach reunion, Louise pressures me to get a pedicure.  I hate pedicures; I’d rather have four teeth pulled than get a pedicure.   I picked up some sort of super fungus in Vietnam (I think it was on my second tour in ’71-’72) that has rendered my feet marshmallow tender and my toenails rock hard and so thick that the jaws of even industrial clippers  can’t get a grip on them.  I’ve been to podiatrists, dermatologists, and witchcraft specialists – I’ve tried every anti-fungal medicine known to man; nothing can beat this fungus.   When Louise drags me into a pedicure salon, and I take my socks off,  the most hardened pedicurists can’t hide their shock and dread at seeing the task at hand.  I’ve never had a good experience with a pedicure.  But the mother of all pedicures took place in San Francisco a couple of years ago.  Some of  the locals and some family members have heard this story, but I don’t believe I’ve ever written it down, and it’s too good a story not to be preserved.

We were in San Francisco visiting our grandson while his parents were on vacation.  Our beach trip was coming up soon, and Louise is very embarrassed by my feet and has the crazy notion that a pedicure just might make them look more presentable.  So she booked an appointment for me at a Vietnamese Salon in the city.   I had a special foreboding about this.  I asked Louise, “Are they South Vietnamese or North Vietnamese?”  She didn’t know.  This was not good.  I would be subjecting myself to what in itself would be unbearable torture, and possibly at the hands of our one-time sworn enemy.  I pleaded with her not to make me do this, and that I would suffer greatly.  “Don’t be such a wimp,” she ridiculed.  Oh, that hurt.  I knew I had to suck it up and bear it.

She dragged me into the shop.  The lady who greeted us could see the fear in my eyes – she smirked and said “YOU, SIT DOWN AND WAIT!”

There were seven pedicure stations and all were occupied, so I had to wait my turn.  Louise had scheduled herself to visit my grandson, Findley’s, school, so she left me there saying she would be back in an hour.  I looked around my torture chamber with dread, but made a conscious effort to tough it up.  I was the only male in the place.  Every pedicure chair was occupied by a woman with a pillow in her lap.  They all seemed content as they chatted with each other and with the pedicurists.  I couldn’t hear well enough to know if they were speaking English or Vietnamese.  Occasionally they would glance over at me and smirk.  The seven chairs were arranged in an “L” shape, with five chairs in a row and the other two forming the other leg of the “L.”  After about ten minutes, one of the chairs on the short leg finished – the lady paid the “Mama-san,” obviously the owner of  the joint, and departed.  Mama-san had actually been working on the lady in the other chair on the short leg of the “L.”  Mama-san then looked at me and said, “YOU, SIT THERE!” pointing to the empty chair next to her station.

A younger Vietnamese woman was attending my station.  As she ran fresh hot water into my foot bath, she took my shoes and socks off and gasped as she saw my feet.  She didn’t speak, though.  She never attempted to converse with me, nor I to her.  I don’t think she knew a word of English.  She rubbed my feet down with cream first.  This being the only painless part of the operation, I tried to enjoy this, but I was gripping the armrests of the chair tightly in anticipation of what was to come.  I was a little concerned that all the other ladies had pillows in their laps, but I was never offered a pillow.   This convinced me that I was indeed in a North Vietnamese establishment.  The young woman then went through three sets of toenail clippers of varying sizes but was growing visibly frustrated as she couldn’t get a bite out of any of my toenails.  She then took out a long gouging tool and began attempting to gouge out the thick crud underneath the nail of my right big toe.  The torture had begun.   I jumped and screamed, “AHHH!” as blood started oozing from my toe.  That startled everyone in the shop, and they all stared at me indignantly.  My attendant then switched over to the left big toe and proceeded to draw blood from it.  I tried valiantly to stifle my screams to little more than a whimper, for I had the undivided attention of everyone in the place.  My thoughts drifted back to my Special Forces training, specifically our torture training where we were taught how to act in the event of capture and torture.  I kept telling myself, “No matter what they do to me, I’ll give only name, rank, and service number.”  As I looked around the room in abject fear, I marveled at the notion that I was the only person suffering any kind of discomfort.  A couple of the women in adjacent chairs were chatting amiably, two had magazines that they seemed to be enjoying between conversations, and two had actually been sleeping until I woke them up with my scream.

It was becoming evident, though, that the woman working on my feet was growing more frustrated by the minute.  My foot bath was turning pink from the blood mixing with the water, and she was making little headway in cutting back my toenails.  Finally, she gave up in disgust.  She threw her tools back in the box and stood up and mumbled “NUMBA TEN!”  So, she did speak a little English.  She then began arguing with Mama-san, who was still working on the lady at the adjacent station to mine.  Mama-san obviously did not appreciate this.  After some animated conversation between the two, Mama-san stood up, ripped off her smock and threw it down.  Evidently she told the young woman who had been working on me to switch with her and Mama-san would do me.  As the young woman sat at Mama-san’s stool, Mama-san stomped out and went around the corner to what appeared to be a storage closet.  When she came back out, she had on a floor-length heavy-duty apron, a face mask, and she was carrying a power drill.

Mama-san didn’t say a word to me.  She plopped herself down on the stool in front of me, grabbed my right foot, and fired up the drill.  I’m telling my self, “I will be strong, I will be strong – name, rank, and serial number, name, rank, and serial number.”  The drill had a large grinding bit on it, and when she pressed it to the toenail on my big toe, dust started flying.  Fortunately, the loud, screeching, whirring noise of the drill was mostly drowning out my screams.  Additionally, I was gripping the arms of my chair, jumping up and down in the seat, and the kicking of my left foot  in the bloody foot bath was splashing water and blood on both of us.  But, by God, she trimmed those toenails.  She used that drill on every toe.  When she finally turned off the drill (after about 20 minutes), I breathed a sigh of relief.  I had survived; she didn’t break me.  Ah, but not so fast, Coop.  She was just getting started.  She  then pulled out an abrasive brick, about 2x4x4 inches in size.  Grabbing my right foot again, she used that brick as a sanding block and started sawing back and forth on the bottom of my foot, with the intent of grinding away callouses, dead skin, and the first layer or two of live skin.  Unfortunately, this time there was no sound of the drill to drown out my screaming.  I was totally broken; I pleaded with her, saying I would tell her anything she wanted to know.  I was ready to do or say anything to stop the torture.  But she was merciless.  She didn’t stop until the bottoms and sides of both feet were raw and seeping blood.  She then went through three or four gouging tools, digging out crud, cuticles, and loose-hanging pieces of toes.

Finally, after she saw that she had reduced me to a whimpering, blubbering mass, she actually started showing a little pity on me.  She went through about a half roll of paper towels trying to stop the bleeding and did a half-assed effort at massaging my calves.  Louise walked in the door as Mama-san was putting my shoes and socks back on.  Mama-san gave me a paper towel to wipe away the tears, and I staggered out the door as Louise cheerfully said, “Now, that wasn’t so bad was it?”

Trying to walk barefoot on marshmallow tender feet.