Andrea

Andrea

I might be uptight but that doesn’t mean bunions aren’t contagious or that you can’t die from them

I’m knee deep into a small DIY blog re-design which means that my ankles are completely submerged in puddles of stress sweat, swear words and, pretty soon, bricks because honest to God, I am going to shit a few if Firefox and Internet Explorer don’t get their acts together and play nice nice.

Yesterday, I thought I’d give myself a break by having lunch with Heather and then getting my eyebrows threaded because having a total stranger yank out my facial hair by the roots is so much more relaxing than yelling WHY THE HELL IS THIS BLUE AND WHY THE HELL IS IT WAY OVER THERE, YOU STINKIN’ SON OF A BITCH at my monitor every three minutes. If things don’t improve soon, I’ll be getting my nether regions done by Friday. Nothing says I HATE WEB DESIGN more than a Brazilian threading.

So after lunch, Heather and I headed over to a local Indian salon and when we walked in, I immediately froze because the first thing we noticed was a bunch of shoes in the entrance way and they didn’t have any feet in them.

My hope was that everyone had been abducted by aliens who had sucked them right out of their shoes and into their spaceship because that was preferable to the possibility that clients had removed their shoes in the name of etiquette and were walking around barefoot, exposing the rest of the world to a potential lethal dose of athlete’s foot.

But then Heather found a sign that read “Please remove your shoes before entering” which might as well have read “Please come in and walk all over some bubonic plague and E.coli” and I gave the go ahead to my intestines to do that thing they do where they get all bunched up and play python with my lungs.

I don’t do barefoot unless I’m in Pedicureland where my feet are pampered and sanitized or I’m in in the privacy of my own home where my feet are neither pampered nor sanitized but at least in my own home, most of the hair and dead skin cells and various other DNA that I’m walking on either fell off my own body or that of my husband and children so it’s hereditary, familial filth which probably won’t cause me to grow an extra set of toes out of my ankles. I can’t say the same about stranger filth. And besides, I always have the option to vacuum a path from the kitchen to the family room or rip up the carpet entirely if I’m feeling particularly phobic.

But I can’t drag my Dyson into a salon without some sort of explanation and I don’t know how to say “Since I have no way of knowing if you’re covered in fungus or if you’ve been traipsing through feces, would you mind standing on that end table over there whilst I make this floor safe for the rest of humanity?” without sounding bitchy.

This is the reason why I would sooner lick a public toilet than walk barefoot in a hotel room. It’s also the reason why I don’t do pools or water parks without water shoes. The mere thought of walking barefoot on a dirty moist floor is enough to make me gag up last week’s pork chops. Twice. While I try very hard not to impart my freaky crazy upon my kids so that they can grow up normally, it takes every ounce of restraint I have at a swim meet not to shout ZOE! MAKE SURE YOU BLEACH YOUR FEET AFTER THE 200 FLY, OK? PROMISE ME RIGHT NOW THAT YOU’LL REMEMBER. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? WANT ME TO WRITE IT ON YOUR ARM? I usually try to distract myself by watching the divers between heats but once, I witnessed a diver emerge from the pool and wipe herself down from head to toe with her swim chamois that she picked up off the floor and my skin crawled right off my body, down the bleachers and out the door for some air. For the remainder of the meet, I just watched her through my skinless eyes, waiting for her face to explode into one big plantar wart.

Back at the salon, I stood my ground and firmly stated that no way was I going to remove my shoes and spontaneously die and instead of backing me up and painting HELL NO TO THE BARE TOE signs and picketing the salon with me, Heather shrugged and flung off her shoes and entered the salon, leaving me no choice but to follow her lead because the alternative of going back home to referee more Firefox and Explorer smackdowns with bushy eyebrows was almost as bad as dying from someone else’s toenail fungus.

So I entered and tried really hard to levitate myself and not touch the floor but gravity hates me so I hobbled around on the outsides of my feet to diminish the surface contact area and then I practically jumped into the threading chair and honestly, I think I’ve become so adept at camouflaging my own bizarreness that I don’t think Heather even knew I had issues. Unless she was just being polite and didn’t want to holler I’LL TAKE BATSHIT CRAZY FOR $800, ALEX and make a scene.

Back at home, I now have tamed eyebrows, sterilized feet and a wonky IE navigation menu with a big ol’ honkin’ CSS bug up its stubborn ass.

I fear commando nether regions are imminent.

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19 thoughts on “I might be uptight but that doesn’t mean bunions aren’t contagious or that you can’t die from them”

  1. Avatar

    I’m so glad there’s an anxiety out there that I don’t suffer from personally. I have so many, sometimes I think I’ve collected every single one there is. I’ve been barefoot in some seriously scummy places though, and never once gotten syphilis from it or even a foot fungus. I did get a toenail fungus from a pedicure once and now I’m really, really careful about where I get one. And I never let them use that scrapey thingy on me whenever I get one, which is practically never anyway.

    I never tried the threading thing. I’m always afraid it’s going to hurt (more than waxing).

    Funny post and good luck with the re-design!

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    You are too funny, Andrea. My grandmother was a germaphobe. I was not allowed to sit on a public toilet until age 14 because of her. The maid had to clean the toilet with clorox after she used it. Sheets had to be triple rinsed. Meat had to be ground 3 times. I could go on and on, but therapy is easier. After traveling in Russia and Kazakhstan I gave up any germaphobe tendencies. Makes life much easier. Saves money on hand sanitizer, too…

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    Be straight with me on this threading thing. Painful? Worse than waxing? I’ve never done either. My eyebrows are so light that you can barely see them, but they’re bugging me.

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      Well, I’m not going to say it’s fun or anything but it’s definitely not excruciating or even painful for me for the most part, except sometimes the area towards the outside of my brow is sensitive and therefore that *can* be a little painful. But overall, it’s kind of like having a pair of battery operated tweezers – know what I mean? It’s the same sensation as traditional tweezing but just faster and more intense.

      I love the results so much more than waxing. Waxing is painful for me and leaves me with red splotchy blotches all over my brows.

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    Hello? Do you remember with whom you were lunching/entering weird Indian spas yesterday?

    It is I, Queen of the ‘Having Weird *Things* woman.

    By which I mean to say, of course I noticed you were squicked out. I was too, but I was putting on my brave face because I didn’t want to miss out on the sight of you getting a body part threaded.

    I did think it was a little weird the way we were wandering around in there, barefoot and all, and the lady didn’t come out until we’d been politely hollering our fool heads off for like four minutes………..

    After watching (and showing the admirable restraint not to live tweet with photos the whole affair), I totally would get my eyebrows threaded. I just was a little nervous about the way she was eyeballing my upper lip… I prefer to believe that my Jolene Extra Strength Creme Bleach lightens my ‘stache away into nothingness, thankyouverymuch.

    If you’re going back for the Brazilian Threading on Friday, do I get to come? I’ll insist we leave our shoes on for that one……….. 😉

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    Apparently, one of my aforementioned Weird Things is having random punctuation in my comments.

    See? Here’s some more, so that doesn’t look like a typo above:

    #$%!#$$%#$T^@$#

    Okay, that looked like swearing. Not just weird. Hmmm ‘ let me # try aga^in.

    There. That was better.

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    It’s seems to me that one phone call to the Health Department would take care of the barefoot thing! Have you considered another blog server?! I think maybe you could save alot of stress by maybe paying someone to do the website. But…I don’t know the cost of that so it may be prohibitive.
    Finally…you just crack me up!

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    I have to say I’d be a bit squeamish going barefoot into the unknown too. I think I’d be squeamish with the whole threading business as well. You are braver than me, not only with eyebrows but the DIY web re-design. Actually that scares me more than anything. Good luck with it.

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    You know what the ickiest thing about the threading was? The way that she holds the one end of the thread in her mouth.

    I mean, I know the part that is in her mouth is never touching your skin, but…

    That and the bare foot thing. If I didn’t have Hobbity Hooves for feet, I’d have been much more icked out than I already was.

    Whoops – need to do some ran:dom punctuat”ion now. !

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    LOL! surely you would NOT rather LICK a **gag** PUBLIC TOILET seat than go barefoot in a public place!! I have certain germ phobias but around here it’s barefoot all the way! LOL! In case you hadn’t guessed public toilets are probably #1 on my list of extreme grossness followed closely by shopping carts!!YUCK!!!!!!!! I make the kids scrub till their almost raw and we do carry hand sanitizer! 😀

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    Waxing the nether regions, eh? And a Brazilian, no less? WOW. You really do hate web design. LOL

    By the way, if your brain is truly about to explode, you can always hire me. I hate Thesis, but I can design it.

    I forgot to ask, what are ya doing to your design? It really is beautiful now.

    1. Avatar

      I’m not actually doing anything major to it … basically changing my header, changing my navigation menu and changing my footer, which you think would be easy and it probably is for someone who speaks CSS but I don’t speak CSS unless CSS stands for Crazy Stupid Shit which I do speak but apparently it gets lost in translation.

      One day I would love a total overhaul of my site but I think it would wind up killing me.

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    I thought I was weird with damp flooring and getting skeeved out. Adam makes fun of me. ICK. Hope your nether regions fair well on Friday. I don’t think I could do it…. eeeep.

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    I hate having anything on my feet. I would wear sandals out & go barefoot in my house and yard all year if I didn’t live in New England.

    DH says I’m gross….lol

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    OMG, no wonder I feel this connection with you!! I’m the same way with bare feet and damp floors…you should’ve heard me yell at Cole a few days ago when I witnessed him coming out of the bathroom at the pool with BARE FEET!!! I shuddered and practically puked in my own mouth. For the love of God, child, put your freakin sandals on before going into the PUBLIC restroom at the POOL. I’m pretty sure I damaged him just a tad bit more than I already have.

    Oh and when friends were trying to talk me into going to hot yoga wit them, I was almost on board until they told me that you have to be barefoot on these wierd bamboo mats. Okay….HOT yoga means sweat, lots of sweat…yeah, gross. I’m totally not going there.

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