On all fronts therapy and my rehabilitation is going well. My speech still has its days, moments, hours, it seems, but it is mostly I find when I'm overwhelmed or tired that I start stuttering or slurring my speech or can't remember words. And it happens at the most inopportune times too.
Yesterday, after letting my nails grow for the past 2.5 months, I decided that I wanted to treat myself to a manicure. They had grown long enough that they were all a respectable length and decent looking and for the first time strong, it seemed, so I decided to take further care of them. After my appointment with Dr. S on the way home I stopped by a local shop called the Nail Lounge because their sign said that walk-ins were welcome.
As I walk in the door I am immediately accosted by an older than normal Vietnamese woman. In her broken English she said, "you need help?" I explained to her that I'd like a manicure. I really wanted, a French manicure but for the life of me I could not think of that terminology so I just said, "white tips". From out of nowhere, the old woman pulls a box of colored nail samples with every color and design under the sun. She shoved the box in my face and said, "what color". I motioned toward my finger tips and said, "just white tips please." By now I was getting a little unnerved and trying to figure out how I could leave the place quickly since I had obviously bitten off more than I could probably realistically handle at the moment. By the way, there were no other clients in the entire establishment. Just me and three Vietnamese women. She waved her hand in front of me and showed me that every single one of her nails had a different color and design on them, she said, "gel?" I said, "no, just my nails, white tips." Then she tells me to sit at one of the three work tables that they had set up. I sat my purse down and sat down. The second worker came over and said, "acrylic? You get design. Design very nice." I said, "no thank you, just white tips." Second woman said, "ooohhh....white tips...." and went back to her seat. The old woman came back and said, "no white tips here, you go sit over there" and motioned to the back table closest to the third woman who was eating some weird fruit and had it all smashed in her face like a gorilla eating a cantaloupe.
I sat down at the back table and held my purse in my lap, at this point really trying to gauge how on earth I could escape. My head was starting to hurt and I couldn't understand this woman and she was obviously not understanding me. She came over to the table and tried to turn on the work lamp and it wouldn't come on. It was unplugged I could tell because the cord was dangling down on my side of the table. I held the cord up and showed her. She muttered something and said, "no white tips here...go there." And motioned for the middle table. I finally moved to the final of the three tables and was getting more and more nervous with each move. Then, old woman came back and sat down and said, "so sorry, white tips" as if White Tips was my name.
I nodded and held my hands out and she looked at my fingers and said, "ok...white tips only". I nodded and said, "yes, please". My mind was racing. I needed a nap. She pulled out nail clippers and before I could yank my hand back she said, "just straighten". I admit I had a few nails that were a little longer than others so I thought she was just going to even them all out. Nope! She cut my nails. My long beautiful nails were cut. Not completely off, but they were no longer as long as they had been. I was mortified. I wanted to cry. She just kept patting my hands and saying, "it ok, white tips".
For the next hour and half, she slowly, and when I say slowly, I mean incredibly painfully slow, painted my finger nails. At one point she asked me a question that I swear was, "do you like Coke?" And I said, "yes, I like Coke." To which her response was, "nah....fllllpppp" (just some uttered noise that let me know that she was not asking about my preference in soft drinks). When I mentioned with a smile, about an hour or so into the process that I hadn't had a manicure in a long time and this seemed to take a lot longer than usual, she said, "I hurry, white tips". Then within the next 15 minutes she was done and massaging my hands and arms. Which I would definitely return just for the hand and arm massage but not without taking a nap and an native speaker with me. Needless to say, my speech rehab probably needs to get a bit better before I attempt non-English speaking as a primary language conversations again. But in the meantime, I have beautiful white tipped fingernails and if I do decide to go back, ya never know, I might just get a color or design.
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