To be honest, I don't know a lot about fingernail care, which probably makes me a typical man. Still, I'd heard a few people say that men should get manicures and the other night, I was talking to a female friend of mine and she told me that, yes, she does take a look at a guy's nails when she goes out on dates. This was a bit of a surprise to me because,

#1) The only time I ever remember noticing a woman's fingernails was when they were painted some garish color, like black or purple.

#2) My concept of "fingernail etiquette" doesn't go much farther than making sure there isn't any dirt under my fingernails.

So, I was thinking, "Maybe I should bite the bullet and get a manicure some time?"

Well, last night, after I'd walked my dog for three miles and gone to the gym, I had to stop by Wal-Mart to pick something up. As I walked by the onsite nail salon, on an impulse, I figured, "Oh, what the hell? Why not go ahead and get a manicure!"

Then, I walked in, promptly had some sort of brain fart that I can't really explain, and got pedicures and manicures mixed up. So, I asked for a pedicure and someone came out to give me one. They led me over to a massage chair, had me sit down, started running water, and then told me to take off my socks and shoes.

You'd have thought that would have snapped me out of my daze, but I had never been in a nail salon before and I thought, "Gee, maybe they soak your feet while they work on your nails."

Alas, twas not so.

About the time the guy sat down and started working on my big toe, I realized I had asked for him to work on my feet -- which was, let us say, a wee bit embarrassing. Keep in mind, I'm a guy, smelling a little funky since I walked my dog and lifted weights, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, sitting in a nail salon in a North Carolina Wal-Mart, with another guy working on my feet, while people stared as they walked by. On the upside, happily, I lucked out and a crowd didn't start to gather because a guy getting a pedicure in small town North Carolina is probably the equivalent of looking at Knut the Polar Bear in Germany.

After that was finally over, I was thrilled that we got to move to the corner of the nail salon, out of view of people walking by, where the guy gave me a manicure. Unfortunately, I discovered manicures aren't super useful when you have really short nails.

If you're wondering how the manicure and pedicure was, honestly, it felt pretty good and I think I learned more about nail care in 25 minutes that I had in the previous years of my life.

So, am I going to do it again? Hell, no! In fact, I think I am going to have to rent 2 or 3 Chuck Norris movies from Netflix this week just to make up for this and let's face it, you get more than 4-5 deep into Chuck's movies, they tend to get a little stale.