I grew up pretty squarely middle class, we were comfortable and really didn't want for anything. Despite all of this good fortune, my parents still expected a lot from us. We were to be well mannered and behaved while excelling academically in school. If we met their expectations then we pretty much got what our hearts desired (within reason). Until college I just assumed that's how the rest of the world worked. Whether you were well off or not, you were polite and treated people with decency and respect. It wasn't until I got to undergrad that I realized how tragically wrong I was. As an RA, two out of the four years that I spent at my wildly expensive PWU, I can assure you that evil little toddlers become shitty little 18-year olds who subsequently turn into self-serving adults.
Working in the residence hall mail room I soon discovered that not everyone is taught please and thank you in preschool. I once had a mother call the RA phone at 5am to ask me where to order her shit spawn some birthday balloons. (3 years later I'm still pissed). Even later in my most recent place of employment I spent a considerable amount of time cleaning grown people's snot tissues and garbage off of coffee tables. (Clearly the Barney clean-up song isn't played in every household.)
But none of this, none of this entitlement and pompous behavior is more pronounced then it is at my nail salon on the Upper West Side of NYC. I'll admit to spending time twice a month in my beloved salon. It's really cheap, the employees are amaze and typically it's quite a pleasant experience. That is until "she" walks in. (I'm using "she" here as a universal term. There has been many a man that I've encountered who fits these same characteristics, each one more pompous and self-important than the last. Like the man who touched my hair in the club last week, and when I snapped at him he responded by saying "but I like it" as if that justified a strange nasty man hand in my hair. Or the man who TOLD a friend and I to move down in the movie theater so he could sit. As far as I'm concerned that fool could still be waiting for me to move.) But I digress, every few months or so "she" walks into the nail salon and my stomach tightens in disgust.
The first time it happened some lady was waiting on a gel dryer for her manicure as her brat child grew more and more out of control. (Nail shops are not for children!!) As the child dissolved into a puddle of terror, the woman instead of handling her offspring proceeded to rip the poor manicurist a new asshole screaming because she felt she'd waited too long for her mani. (Ma'am can you not see the line of women in here getting gel?!!) The manicurist literally burst out in tears as everyone else in the salon looked on in horror.
Now don't get me wrong I truly believe in good customer service especially when hard earned money is being spent. (This is also why I will never for the duration of my Black ass life purchase anything from Ikea EVER again.) However there is a time and a place for everything. People who are just outwardly rude and entitled disgust me. What's amusing is that these people usually end up embarrassing themselves. Which brings me to the motivation behind this post.I'm sitting here right now in my pedicure chair writing this piece because the woman next to be just made a complete fool of herself.
When my sis and I walked in, there were a couple of women waiting so we put our names down on the list. After sister started her pedicure I waited until another technician was free and then took my spot in my chair. Perhaps 8 or so women walked in after me and wrote their names on the list. (I'm lowkey nosy so I was paying attention.) The woman to the right of me was on the list right under me and the woman to my left was a few names down the page. My pedicure gets started and so does the woman to my right. Another woman sits at a manicure station. Suddenly out of nowhere the woman to my left slams her computer downs and screams "Are you serious?!! I'm so DONE!!! You're gonna take all these women before me and I was here before them!!!
..................... The entire salon is silent. The woman to my right and I look at each other and then both say to the heaving ball of rage. "No you weren't." The woman to my left calmly resumes reading her magazine. I glance at sister trying not to chuckle as the guy doing my pedi tries to hold in his giggles as well.
All that entitlement and where did that get you? Looking a ridiculous ass fool that's where. Perhaps people will learn to be more polite and more kind with time. Until then I'll sit back and watch them humiliate themselves.
xoxoxo Chocolate Girl in the City xoxoxoxo