Gift Vouchers and Foot Gratings

The first gift voucher I remember receiving was a leaving gift from colleagues when I was pregnant with the Blonde Bombshell.  My plan at the time was to finish work at 39 weeks and spend the following week or so relaxing.

Anyway, like many women having their first baby I began to get a little preoccupied with what to do 'down there'.  Do you shave or wax it all off?  Leave it Au natural and let the doctors decide what to do?  Get them to wax a little arrow pointing down saying 'baby this way'?  I decided to use my gift voucher for a bit of a tidy up.  I thought the doctor might appreciate it.

'Hello, I would like to book in for a bikini wax please'

'No problems, have you been here before?'

'No, this is my first time'.

'That's fine, when would you like to come in?  There's a space on Friday'.

'No, I will be 40 weeks pregnant, can we make it a bit sooner just in case the baby decides to come early?'

'Ummm so you're 40 weeks pregnant and you want to come in for your first ever bikini wax?...'

The rising anxiety in her voice was a bit of a concern and needless to say the following conversation about increased blood flow to the area, and risk of horrific bruising didn't fill me with confidence.  Surely turning up to labour looking like I had already tried to remove the baby with a Dyson wouldn't give the best impression.

I decided to use my voucher for a pedicure instead.

Since then I have received a couple more vouchers for pedicures and I just love them.  I especially love them when they're from my Mum and she provides snacks and babysitting services at the same time.

What I don't love is foot gratings.

I remember being horrified and disgusted when I saw the old lady sitting next to me have her feet shaved during her spa pedicure.  It was as though the beautician had popped out of NailsRUs (or wherever we were), ducked into KitchenWitch and bought a Parmesan shaver and then proceeded to shave layer after layer of grey foot peelings from this lady's foot. I shuddered, thinking that I would never be that old, never be that disgusting that I would need my feet shaved.

About five minutes later when the beautician settled herself down in front of me, I shuddered, realising that I was that old, I was that disgusting.  My feet needed shaving.  The lady tried to discreetly sweep the pile onto the floor, but I could see it.  Through the tears of humiliation I could see it!

Why am I bringing this up?  Well, during my child-free trip to Sydney my friend and I popped in for a pedicure.  My foot-lady automatically pulled out an entire Italian kitchen of shaving and grating utensils, whereas my friend merely needed a light buff with an emery board.  But while we were there a B-grade celebrity walked in for a pedicure, script in hand (it was Balmain, after all).  She's been in television and movies for over a decade, we'd all recognise her face if not her name.  She's famous.  And beautiful and probably rich. 

And she needed her feet grated.