Nailed it

South African men are macho. They eat red meat – mostly dried, drink beer – mostly cold and they play or like rugby. Alot.
What they don’t do is go to the beauty parlour. With their wives to get their nails done. Ever.
Oh no they don’t.
Arab men wear white robes. I don’t know what they eat and they are not supposed to drink so I assume they don’t, and they ride horses and drive cars.   Fast.
What they do, do is go to the beauty parlour. Without their wives to get their nails done. Often.
Oh yes they do.
Its called perspective, people.
So when my beer drinking, dried meat eating, rugby fanatical husband complained about in-grown toenails and the fact, (at that stage in his life but not anymore), that his beer boep was stopping him from reaching his toes at all, I did what all nice, inclusive wives would do. I invited him along to my Beauty Parlour.
Imagine that.
You can also imagine how much pain he must have been in, as he eventually relented as long as I made the booking and went with him and didn’t tell my friends, (of course I would never, ever do that) then all’s well that would end well.
Which it did.
So very well in fact,  its become a routinely monthly outing for my macho South African man and me.
Whoppeee!
Beauty Parlours are interesting phenomena here in Dubai.   Men use them often and women use them more often. Therefore they are in great demand and you’ll usually find one, or two or both as frequently as you’ll find a mosque. Like every square kilometer.
Men’s are full-on glass fronted, bright lighted with the interior totally exposed to the exterior. Women’s are blacked out, dim lighted and totally excluded from the exterior.
It’s all perfected, people.
We gave this one in the mini mall right round the corner from us a miss. For fairly obvious reasons…

…and settled for Mary’s Foot Spa which has a male and a female shop right next to each other. Same, same but separate. This, so I could hold his hand and guide him right to His door, drop him off to do his in-grown, up-grown thing and I could go do mine through the Hers door.
Or so I thought.
But no… because hey ho, we found out that I, a female, am allowed into the male domain. To politely sit with my macho South African man while we both get our nails done.   He, a male,  on the other hand, would be drawn and quartered and dragged across the desert behind a camel if he dared enter the female section.
Perhaps this is prejudice, people.
Whatever.  It is what it is because that’s just the way they rock and roll here and thats ok…

…because there we will be seen, my South African macho man and me, sitting side by side, in the big squishy chairs with this sweet serving and hugely smiling Filipino community, carefully cutting, cleaning and polishing our nails and
Its all just perfect, because we’ve nailed it people.