Mar 21 2007
Drying Time
I stand working at the laptop on our kitchen island, reading aloud the affidavits of people who sued their opthalmalogists for malpractice. I glance at Shannon to see whether she’s interested.
One of her feet is on the floor. The other is in the kitchen sink, fresh nail polish glistening in the fluorescent light. Not as limber as she once was, she’s pushing her elasticity. She holds a can of generic cooking spray.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I saw on TV that spraying Pam on your nails helps the polish dry faster.” She grunts as she works to stay balanced.
I roll my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She sprays her toenails, managing to coat all her toes and part of her foot. After putting down the cooking spray, she struggles a bit. It seems she’s reached her stretching limit and can’t lift her foot high enough to get it out.
“Help me,” she says.
I step over to the sink, gently lift her foot, and swing her leg 90 degrees.
Seconds later, from the corner of my eye I see her other leg swing up and hear the now-familiar sound of her heel hitting the sink’s rim. “Oh, now I can’t reach the Pam,” she says.
I grab the cooking spray and hand it to her. She sprays. I again help her withdraw her foot and get back on all two’s.
Later, after we talked about several other things while getting ready for bed, I mention the great Mexican food we had at my office’s catered lunch.
While clipping my fingernails into my sink, I say, “They told me to bring home some of the chips, because there was so much leftover. I said, ‘No, no, my wife would kill me if I did that. Those things are greasy. Good, but greasy.’”
“My toes are greasy,” she says from the bed.
“What?” I ask.
As nonchalantly as if she’s telling me my toast is ready, she says, “Because I sprayed Pam on them.”
That’s my cockamamie lady.
*LOL* Maybe she wants you to have a “foot fetish” moment Mark… sheesh, get with the program! *ROTFL*
Mark, I tried really hard NOT to picture you licking your wife’s toes, but I just wasn’t strong enough. Dammit. (It didn’t help that you used the word ‘cockamamie’.)
One of my biggest pet peeves is people who clip their nails at work. The hall always goes silent and all I can hear is the intermittent SNICK! from somewhere within ear-shot. Next time it happens I’m thinking of find that person and just standing in their doorway watching. Maybe with safety glasses on, just in case.
I got a Swiss Army Knife from my dad when I ‘graduated’ from grade six and I’ve used the scissors on that thing to cut my nails ever since. No noise, and no accidentally flying bits to take out an eye or land in the pancake batter.
So…did the Pam actually speed up the drying? And if so, did it shave enough time off the process to justify making it a two-person process?
Alternate title for post: Toe-Stitos
Well, since you guys went there, I’ll put back in the part I left out.
When she first told me why she was spraying her toes with Pam, I said, “I thought maybe you were going to give me a footj*b.”
“People do that?” she asked.
“Some people, yeah.”
Simon - Until I surrendered my last Swiss Army knife keyring to airport security scanners, I too kept my nails trimmed the same way. But, for a full fingernail grooming session, I still whipped out the clippers.
Moksha - Nice title post suggestion. Leave it up to the guy with the most clever online name ever to come up with that.
Well, at least her toes and feet won’t stick to anything. I got nothin’.
Glad I was able to provide you with some material for your blog at such a late hour, my dear. And guess what? It worked! I have lovely, shiny, non-smudged toenails this morning.
Dave - ew!
What I want to know is how long did Shan wait to go to bed after doing this? I hate having to wait to go to bed for hours after I paint my toenails. And it always seems like no matter how long I wait, my toenails are still smudged the next morning. Oh, and don’t your sheets have pam all over them now???
Lan, I went to bed pretty quick after spraying them, and no smudges this morning! I needed to wash the sheets anyway, so I figured what the heck?
I prefer other methods to induce sheet-washing. They’ve never involved Pam, but I suppose they could.
I tried to take the high road, Mark. I tried to ignore Dave and Simon’s calls to turn this into a fetish-fest. I stayed on target and made a comment about the point you were trying to make…and not the obvious point that so clearly lurks behind any image of a woman with greased-up feet.
One man can only do so much, obviously. I return to find that we have, despite my best efforts, sank into a comment thread of all things foot-lube…with a smattering of finger nail clipping thrown in for added wierdness.
Poor Shan even tried to pull it out of the gutter and get this conversation back on track. But Simon, hopped up on an innuendo bender, swooped in to trample the purity of even her innocent comment about dirty sheets.
I’d say I was dissappointed…but really this is exactly the kind of thing that keeps me coming back ;)
Moksha (and other guys) - don’t think that I haven’t noticed that the dirtier the post, the more comments from you guys!
Ah, but Shannon, who first dirtied the post with her lubricated toes? You can play the innocent blonde waif as much as you’d like, but I’m getting wise to your ways!
Oh, damn - you’re onto me! ;-)
Simon and Shan - You two crack me up.
Lan - Thanks for chiming in. More female voices out here would be nice.
Moksha - And I appreciated your effort. But, gutter brain is hard to overcome once it’s infected you. I caught it waaaay back in my teens and damned if I know how to cure it.
The lady’s toenails look perfect, by the way.