Mornings suck. Monday mornings suck even harder. I was supposed to be going on holiday yesterday but Leila decided to do her usual trick of coming down the with lurgy 18 hours before we were due to set off.
From experience, I know that it’s infinitely more preferable to miss the holiday entirely than it is to be stuck in a 7×10 hotel room with a TV with 4 channels and a pissy baby who can’t sleep for coughing. (She’s OK by the way… just needs some TLC and the chocolate from my Advent Calendar it seems).
Anyway… I wanted to debate something today. It’s nothing controversial (I don’t think) but it is something that irritates me.
Here we go…
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I like beauty treatments. Perhaps it stems from my childhood… I used to sit on the floor infront of my mother’s chair for hours while she played with my hair. And my poor Dad? I practically drove him to distraction begging that he tickle my feet whilst the teleprinter delivered the afternoon’s results on Grandstand. You can tell I was the youngest child right?
What has never appealed to me though is the thought of having any of this done whilst ON DISPLAY in the centre of a highly trafficked shopping mall on a Friday afternoon. I mean seriously… I know people are busy and all… but really? I don’t even want my nails done in a public arena like this, let alone a facial or a massage. What happened to a bit of privacy?
I get that people often have to fit appointments into their lunchbreaks, sometimes picking at their Boots meal deal with one hand whilst choosing which OPI for the other but as a passer-by I feel uncomfortable just SEEING someone having their brows threaded so openly – so you can imagine my reticence at being on the other side of that ‘beauty bar’.
Perhaps it’s a cultural thing? Maybe I’m a little too uptight and ‘British’ about it… but honestly? It’s in those situations that I feel at my most vulnerable. Trust in your technician is paramount… I don’t need my vulnerability compounded by hearing 6yr old Jordan ask his mother (and everyone else within earshot) why that lady over there is getting attacked with a piece of string.
I want to try threading but everywhere near me (that isn’t like some private secret threading party I don’t know how to get into) is the kind of place where I have to sit in the middle of a concourse (usually next to the cafe) or in Debenhams at the top of the escalators so that shoppers get the added bonus of being able to see up my nose aswell.
In this country, the practice seems fairly limited to threading, manicure/pedicure and hair styling. Perhaps I should be thankful for small mercies. When I was in Australia, I would see people getting chinese massage and facials as I darted from store to store.
How do you feel about it? Where would draw the line and what’s next…. a quick scrape and polish at the dentistry bar before after work drinkies?
