Pedicure Woes

It was my birthday last Wednesday, and Tyler got me something he often gets me: a gift certificate to get a pedicure. It's ok that he gets me the same thing every year, because I ask for the same thing every year, because pedicures have become so ridiculously expensive that I can only justify it if it's for a special occasion.

And, every year, I'm starting to feel more and more like an old person when I open it up. I usually say something like, "Twenty-seven dollars?! Time was you could get a manicure and a pedicure for that kind of money."

It's not many things I can say "time was..." about being that I'm not that old. So, here's a short list of things I remember about The Good Old Days and/or things that have shocked me recently about the youngsters these days.

1. I remember walking to Thrifty's and getting an ice cream for 39¢.
2. I heard on Grammar Girl that you are now supposed to only put one space after a period when typing a paragraph. This pains me a little bit, like the grammarians are stealing my childhood, and it is completely impossible to train my fingers to do. I actually heard of this a while back, but it was from an uppity 19-year-old girl in nursing school who's grammar foundation, in my opinion, was shaky at best so I did not believe her one bit.
3. I remember when the first person I knew got internet service. It was called Prodigy and compared to today's internet, it was very limited. I remember thinking, 'this is a good idea, but what use is it?'
4. I had a pager in Jr. High because only business men and drug dealers had cell phones.
5. My friend John was the first person I knew to get an mp3 player, when we were in high school. It held 13 songs.
6. I woman in our ward gave a talk today. I consider this lady somewhat of a peer, although I know she's younger than me. She was about to read a quote from President Benson, and she said something like, "this is from a while ago... let's see... 1986, so I wasn't even born yet..." I couldn't hear what she said next because I was too busy trying to mentally digest that people who were born in 1987 are adults.

My pedicure looks lovely, if you were interested. The nice Vietnamese woman chided me good naturedly as she set about the work of scraping off my prodigious callouses on my heels with the tool she had to retrieve from the back. Us Calder women can grow callouses with the best of them and no amount of pumice stoning or PedEgging at home will keep them at bay.* This is why, once a year, I can justify the expense of the pedicure. And, I like it when they massage my legs.

*Once, a Russian beautitican told my sister to put "the Crisco" on her feet and then tie them up in baggies before she goes to bed and that would cure her callouses. This seems, to me, on par with illegal information gathering techniques and completely freaks me out and makes my skin crawl just to think about. So, whenever I complain about my callouses and how there's nothing I can do to stop them, Tyler always offers to get the Crisco and I just count down the months until my birthday.