The Most Stressful Things About Going To The Salon

Maybe it's just me, but I find going to the beauty salon incredibly stressful. I know a lot of women enjoy being "pampered" and the whole "treat yo self" thing, but to me a treat is sitting in a warm room by myself with a block of cheese, the TV, Candy Crush Saga and a book to keep me company (and obviously no pants on). I do not consider having someone dig their nails into my skull and call it a "head massage" while telling me how their kitten ate a tampon string and had to have intestinal surgery to have it removed, and how ridiculously expensive that was. I dread going to the salon. Mani-pedis give me anxiety. Having someone wax me makes my skin crawl. But these are all necessary evils, lest I attempt to beautify myself, which almost always results in painting my entire fingers and toes and nearly waxing off my own labia. Not cute.

I have always wanted to be one of those women who feels at ease at the salon. Who considers being beautified part of her Saturday morning ritual. Who breezes in, knowing exactly what she wants, and reclines luxuriously, indulging in her weekly guilty pleasure reading of People magazine while it's done, emerging soft, beautiful, relaxed. But no. I am the woman who bumbles in, is convinced she needs three more treatments than she intended to have, sweats profusely through everything and walks out frazzled, already chipping her nail polish, with a damp ass. I am the woman who is waxed so rarely her beautician holds up a wax strip after doing her top lip and proclaims to the room "Hairy, like boy!" And yet, I persist: one day I will no longer be a twitchy hag and I will be elegant salon lady.

So for all my ladies in the house who loathe the prospect of getting their various things "did", but do it because they still want to be pretty (or stubbornly refuse to give up on figuring out how to "enjoy" this experience), here are the five most stressful things about going to the beauty salon.

1. Choosing A Nail Polish Color

Because there's 50 bajillion nail polish colors to choose from, picking one (let alone two, if you want to mix it up between fingers and toes) is very stressful. I generally wind up trying out every single color of polish (so my fingernails are a patchwork of tiny, multi-colored blobs), choosing one, changing my mind, forgetting which one is the one in the right bottom corner of my thumb (which is the one I want now), having to try every single color again to try and find that exact one, finding it, immediately regretting my decision once the beautician starts painting my nails, at which point it's too late to change my mind again.

2. Being Ticklish

Getting a foot spa is supposed to be relaxing and yet all I can do is convulse in giggles. The lady at my salon doesn't even both grating the bottom of my feet any more because I think she's sick of me screaming and almost kicking her in the face every time I feel ticklish, which is every single second it's happening.

3. Conversations During Waxing

When a woman is tearing all the pubes off of my vagina the last thing I want to do is engage in conversation. But there are those beauticians who will try to make small talk at all costs. What part of me laying prostrate holding my legs behind my ears with one hand and pulling my butt cheeks apart with the other says I want to chat right now? I understand that this woman is probably just trying to put me at ease and be nice, but lady, just keep ripping. The faster the better. Let's leave the chit chat for all the times I'm not spread-eagle with your face in my vag as you pluck out wiley strays.

4. The Painful Massage They Insist On Giving You

You know when your nails are drying and one of the ladies comes up behind you and starts torturing you with some shoulder pinching and/or pummeling your spine with her fists? There's no real way to get out of this, short of saying "stop it, stop it now", so it becomes a very anxiety inducing situation in which you're corned between the nail dryer and the beauticians evil massage with no where to run. I get super awkward and immature when this happens; I let them go for about a minute, then I start shrugging them off while going "thank you thank you thank you" as though I'm super satisfied.

5. When They Try To Dress You At The End

Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than when, at the end of my salon session, the women who have already been in contact with my dead foot skin, butt sweat and ample pubic hair try to dress me. Those ladies have already done enough. They fought the war on my body and they returned triumphant. It's absolute absurdity when they try to put on my shoes and your coat for me too, and it makes me feel like some kind of Kim Kardashian-style scumbag overlord, which easy, breezy salon girl is most definitely not.

Images: NBC