A mother's hands

So, you know those kiosks that are always set up in the middle of malls? I get so nervous walking by them. I know it's pathetic, but the people that work in them are like vultures. It's almost worse than walking onto a used car lot. I swear they can smell weakness, and I am oh so weak. I always feel bad ignoring them, especially after they've chased me halfway across the mall yelling "ma'am, excuse me ma'am, may I please have a minute of your time?". I try as hard as I can not to make eye contact, but they position themselves right in front of you to where it's almost impossible.

The cell phone people are usually the worst. They always shout at me as I'm walking by "who's your cell phone provider?". Without stopping and barely even turning my head I always respond "I'm happy with my service, and anyway I have a contract". To which they respond without missing a beat "I can get you such a great deal that it would make up for the fees you'd have to pay for breaking your contract". YEAH RIGHT!



Anyway, I've gotten off track here. Some of the kiosks are actually very useful and many of the sales people are very kind & helpful.



The point of all of this is leading up to a funny story. Usually the kids are a pretty good deterrent for sales people. They seem to realize that when they see someone trying to keep track of 3 kids & keep them happy that they don't really have time to stop to listen to their schpill. Well, I happened to be at the mall all by myself a couple of weeks ago (which is pretty rare) so apparently I was fair game.



I walked by this nail kiosk and the lady started speed walking toward me.

lady: "excuse me ma'am can I see your hands"

me: "I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry"

lady: (blocking my path) "this won't take long at all"

me: "um, well, okay"

lady: (starts buffing my nails) "this will be great for you"

me: "oh, actually I already have a kit like this"

lady: "really? which one do you have?"

me: "I don't know what it's called, but it has a buffer, a cuticle treatment and some type of conditioning serum"

lady: (with a look of disgust, like I have the worst hands she'd ever seen. Although admittedly they are pretty bad) "well you obviously don't use it, why don't you use it then?"

me: (a bit annoyed at this point...I didn't want to stop in the first place and now I'm being insulted) "because I have 3 kids, one of them being a newborn so I don't have a lot of time to myself."

lady: (takes a step back and looks me up and down) "you have 3 kids? You look great!"

Sure thing lady. Everything except my horrendous nails huh???

Needless to say, I didn't buy anything.