Hello once more, dearest devotees! The Lifestyle Support Guru is here again to help you live your life more fully and gain a greater sense of achievement and fulfilment. I realise that it is not many days since I guided you through the pitfalls of MAKING PLANS, but I feel that I need to share another experience with you and encourage you to fill those empty moments in your life with a … PASTIME!
painted hand
Some of you may feel that you already have enough in your life with activities such as photography, knitting, cooking, crocheting, feeding the piranhas, watching paint dry, but TRUST ME – this PASTIME can offer hours of amusement (or even bemusement). Tell us about this wonderful form of recreation, I hear you cry. Let me keep you in suspense no longer … the BEAUTY SALON! Already I hear your cries of disillusionment (and not just from the males among you), but again I say TRUST ME! All of life is here! Be prepared to be AMAZED!
1. You enter the BEAUTY SALON expecting simply to have your feet scrubbed, polished and painted (actually, it’s your nails that will be painted, not your feet) and are led upstairs (downstairs is for hair) where you relax in a comfortable chair, ready to be pampered.
2. Coffee in hand, feet in the foot spa, you flick idly through celebrity magazines as your feet are gently massaged and soothed (actually, it tickles and you want to giggle, but that would be SO
feet in water
uncool!). You decide that celebrities are incredibly boring, so you chat to the beautician – who also happens to be the salon owner – and ask her how long she’s been doing this (really intellectual question!), expecting her to say about three years, since she looks about 20. You learn that not only did she do three years’ training as a beautician, but she also spent another three years working in a salon in Nottingham, followed by 7 years as a youth worker before further training in hairdressing! She then tells you that you have nice feet (hahahaha!) and she wished she had feet like yours. In your mind you wish that she had your feet if you could exchange them for her skin, looks and figure (but maybe not the teal green hair), although you realise that chubby white feet might look a little strange on long, brown, flawless legs. Sigh.
3. You are left to your own devices when the beautician goes downstairs to answer a query about the cost of a FULL male waxing – yes, I mean FULL! – which she and her assistant discussed in front of you first (in a very tasteful way, I have to say, but ‘bum’ came into the conversation more than once). While you are sitting with your feet wrapped in towels as the
tan machine
lime, coriander, garlic and chilli foot cream – only joking! – does its job, you hear footsteps outside and in walks a chap of indeterminate age – let’s say 70 to be on the safe side – who smiles, says ‘Alright, me duck.’ and then steps into a large, silver tube-like machine standing in the corner of the room. A minute later, a humming noise emanates from the machine and you expect Dr Who or, at the very least, a dalek, to come charging out, but disappointment awaits … 10 minutes later, the same man emerges – looking no different from when he went in – smiles, says, ‘See you, me duck’ and departs the way he came. Apparently, he does this at least three times a week!
4. Finally, you are ready to leave with your newly-polished nails ( a sort of pale lilac) and your
constipated Duck
soft, sweet-smelling feet – unfortunately, the whole effect is spoiled as you walk downstairs because the sandals you are wearing have a smooth bottom (see ‘male waxing’ above) and you are worried that, as a result, your moisturised extremities may cause you to slip, so you descend VERY slowly, gripping the handrail tightly and walking something like a constipated duck. But your feet look nice and you realise you have found a new PASTIME!
Visiting the BEAUTY SALON is going to have to become a regular event – if a 70-year-old man can go there three times a week, you can manage it at least once a month, which counts as a regular PASTIME! (However, you do wonder if the 70-year-old is perhaps a retired MP on a large pension.)
Now you know what to do if you are at a loose end this weekend – get a PASTIME!