Olympic Sport: Moms Judging Moms

I'm so Busy!

I was sitting in the chair at the Nail Salon when a 40-ish, petite, blonde-haired woman sat in the seat next to me.  She announced, for all to hear, "I'm too busy to be here, so please hurry."  I turned slightly toward her and gave her a polite smile, thinking to myself, "We're getting our nails painted in the middle of the day.  How busy could we really be?"

She apparently did not get the reaction she was looking for, so she went on to say, "Will you be done in 30 minutes because I have to pick my daughter up?"

"Sure. Sure," replied the nice woman doing her  nails.

She turned to me and asked, "How many kids do you have?"

"I have two children," I replied.  I did not ask her how many kids she had because I was not interested in engaging in a conversation with her.

"Wow.  Two kids.  That must be easy.  I have six kids," she declared.

"That's a lot," I replied.

"You have no idea."

"My sister has five kids, so I'm aware of some of the challenges."

"Do you work?" she inquired of me.

"No."

"Oh, what do you do all day?"

"I'm not really sure, but the days go by quickly."

"How old are your kids?" she asked.  I guess she wasn't finished making her point that she was far busier than me.

"I have a son who is a senior in college and a son who is a high school sophomore."

"Oh my God, you are practically an empty nester.  My kids are still young.  What will you do when your youngest goes to college?  I guess what you do now."

Yeah.  More of the same.  Nothing.

I've gone to the same Nail Salon for years, so everybody who works there knows me and (I think) likes me since I've been a friendly and steady customer.  The workers use limited English, although they appear to understand much of what is being said around them.  Over a ten-year period our exchanges have been limited to:

What you getting?
Pick a color.
How your family?
Wash your hands.
Eyebrows today?
You pay now.

The person doing my nails started speaking in Vietnamese to the person doing "Busy Blonde's" nails, and they nodded and winked at me as they spoke.

I swear one of these days I'm going to invest in Rosetta Stone and learn how to speak Vietnamese.

When "Busy Blonde" left the salon, my Nail Salon friends said to me, "She has three husbands and she used to be a stripper."  "Don't listen to what she says."  "She's crazy."

"What? Oh my God, how do you know that?" I exclaimed.

"Another Mom who comes here told us.  She's her neighbor and knows the whole story.  Only two of the six kids are hers."

"Oh, so she only has two kids, too."

Not so special anymore.

And a stripper?  Bitch.

Score:
Manicurists Judging Moms = 1
Moms Judging Moms = 0