"Dear God, Please let me have eyebrows when this is all over..."

Right next door to Curves is a day spa that, according the words written on their window, does eyebrows and toes amongst other body parts. Seeing my regular agents of torture have moved their businesses from Langley to White Rock and Walnut Grove, I thought I'd give this new place a try.
I walked in to an empty reception area on Friday after I did my 30 minute circut training at Curves. An asian lady heard the bell on the door ring, so she came to the front area from behind a closed door and asked if she could help me.
"Yes, I'd like to make an appointment for a pedicure and eyebrow waxing."
"OK. When?"
"Do you have time on Monday?"
"OK. Sure. What time?"
"How about 11 am?"
"OK. Fine."
And then she picks up a small, desktop calendar, that is about 4" x 6" in size (and where the date of the month fills up the entire square) and asks me my name.
I think she has to be kidding.
She is going to squeeze my name into that tiny little space?
I can see that there are no other names anywhere on that calendar.
I am their only client?

"Your phone number?" she asks. And she writes it down in the margin.
Seriously.
Is this place even legit?

I arrived at my appointment on time and once again entered an empty reception area.
Once again, the asian lady comes out from behind a closed door.
"May I help you?" she asks.
Honestly. I'm their only customer and she doesn't remember me?
"Hi. I'm Jane. I have an appointment for 11 oclock?"
She looks at the clock and nods.
"This way."

I am led to a wide hallway with closed doors on either side. She opens door number 4.
"In here."
I walk into a darked room that has a bed in the middle covered with old orange towels. In the corner there is a shower. On the side wall there is a sink.
I sit on the bed, determined to keep my clothes on. There is a robe hanging on the back of the door but I am not doing this half-naked.

"Lie down," she says as she enters with a foot bath filled with warm water.
She lifts up my legs, bends them at the knee and physically places both feet in the water. She leaves the room.

I can hear a TV in the next room and wonder if this whole enterprise is just a front for some Chinese mafia who need to launder their money.

She re-enters, and without a word, proceeds to gently buff and polish my feet.

When she's done, she puts them under a blow dryer and shifts to the head end of the bed. She places a huge lit magnifying glass over my face and just before she applies hot wax to my eye area, I take a look at her eyebrows.

Oh my goodness.
She doesn't have any.
Just a tiny, tiny fine line of hair way up near the top of her forehead.
What if this is how she does brows?
Has she even gone to school for this?
Does she think her eyebrows are flattering?
Oh no oh no oh no.
What have I got myself into.

She applies wax to every inch of skin above my cheekbones and rips it off one strip at a time. Mentally I'm calculating how many hairs I probably have left.
Then, when she's pulled off the last strip, she grabs her tweezers and and and plucks for another 5 minutes. Ping. Ping. Ping. One by one she tweezes out one hair after another.

"God? Please? Please let there be some hair left there. Please let me walk out of here with eyebrows."

My feet turned out lovely.

And my eyebrows? Look awesome.

Three things I'm thankful for:
1. Mondays off. Wow. I love having time to get these things done. The last time my feet had polish on them and my brows were thinned out? January, just before I left for Puerto Vallarta.
2. Long, talk-filled evening walks. Thanks, Carolyn.
3. Skorts.

Shalom,