The Faker Files: Acrylic Carnage

Though I can say with some confidence that I’ve always been pretty proficient at pretending I know what’s going on, the biggest hotbed of social Fakery was beyond a doubt my first year of college. It was 1999.  I was fresh off the minivan, straight out of high school, with no big brothers or sisters around to tell me exactly what I was doing wrong for the first time in my 18 years on earth. I was less than four hours from my hometown at a large State university, but everyone seemed to speak a whole new language and shop at stores I’d never been to. It was time to FIT IN.

Upon my arrival at orientation I was full of false confidence that since I was a nice girl, with a cute, quirky manner, that I would have no trouble gaining acceptance somewhere in this vast collegiate community. I wasn’t looking to be the most popular girl ever, just thought I’d left my small town behind and make a new start. Indeed, I’d partially picked this school because no one in recent memory had gone there from my high school. Fresh start, take two. 

I hadn’t counted on the Faux Yorkers.* The people from the suburban areas surrounding NYC (LI, Westchester, Rockland, parts of Jersey) who consider themselves cool and fashionable in the extreme in their velour warm up suits and knock off Fendi bags, and who maintain they are from “the City” even though they only go to Manhattan once a year to see the Tree and buy sweatshop schwag in Chinatown. These are perhaps the most skilled Fakers I’ve ever met, however I will not admire their prowess as it is not used for good. 

In place of the expected welcoming smiles and excited introductions, I was greeted at orientation with a wall of snobbery; morning-makeup-wearing suburbanites who giggled at my hick accent and blatantly excluded me from their activities. They had all shown up with squadrons of friends from their high schools. No room on this elevator, upstate girl. In retrospect I can see this hostility as a result of massive collective insecurity, and that probably these kids had never been off The Island themselves. But at the time, their confident veneer was a shock to my system and the need to Fake it adequately became an imperative.

By the grace of Frank** my dorm-mates were not all like this. Mina and Diane from down the hall were friendly and came off as very sophisticated to me, even though they were from a small town in the Catskills. They smoked Marlboro menthol lights 100s that they purchased by the carton every week across the border in Pennsylvania. They went out dancing at frat parties, drank Amaretto sours and were avidly dry-humped by strange men of all creeds and colors. They were not terrified of other people. And one of the most novel things to me: they went to nail salons.

Now, I’m sure many people get manicures where I come from, so I’m not pinning this on geographical differences. No, it’s just people like myself who grew up on sheep farms with hippie parents and have never met anyone with fake nails that weren’t the Lee Press-On variety.  So in my defense, this was legitimately exotic at the time. I had no idea what to expect when the ladies suggested a girls’ date to the Oakdale Mall to get acrylic tips put on. But I sure was excited about it.

We arrived at Asian Nails*** midafternoon and all got separate chairs. I was a bit giddy, but also feeling kind of silly as I was unused to doing anything so blatantly girlish. Suddenly I was on my own, face to face with a middle-aged Korean lady who was the only one working there not wearing a mask.

I did not know, before that, there there was a Marquis de Sade school for manicurists. But this is where my new mask-less friend must have learnt her trade.

She must have sensed my reticence and terror of confrontation from a mile off. She must have been lurking in the back of the salon all day, waiting for someone terrified-looking enough to pounce on. The first few times she jabbed my cuticles, it stung. But hey, this is beauty stuff, right? It’s supposed to smart a little bit…? As I remained silent, biting my lip and struggling to keep my palms on the table, I’m certain I saw a maniacal glint appear in her eyes.

The 45 minutes that followed are difficult to remember. I must have entered a deep Yogic state. Because at the end of it all, I had not only ten massive new French-manicured bits of plastic stuck to the ends of my hands, but rivulets of blood running down each finger. My forearms were sore from pressing my palms to the table. But I did not flinch, I did not cry out, not once, because in my infinite naivete I thought IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS, and maybe I was just being a wimp. I mean, waxing your legs hurts a lot, but people still do it… right?

Imagine my surprise when walked out of Sadist Nails and into the mall and I commented to my new friends how I didn’t know how much this hurt! Man, you guys must all be tough to do this regularly. And again, imagine their stunned silence when Diane examined my bloodied fingertips and swore, marvelling that I would let this succubus with a cuticle-pusher methodically lacerate the delicate skin on my fingertips for almost an hour and not say anything.

I filed off most of the acrylics that night. And kept all ten fingers wrapped in band aids for the next 3 days. Going to the bathroom was a challenge. I never went to a mall nail salon again.  I may be a lifelong Faker, but I am proud of the fact that my fingernails are 100% me. 

*This is a term I made up. Copyright ME.
**Frank is an imaginary sea horse that I credit for all my good fortune.  Go ahead and make fun, I’m sure your religion is much more believable.
***Yes. The salon was actually called ASIAN NAILS.

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