Mani/Pedis All Around

When it came time to plan my daughter’s 12th birthday party, she, as always, shuffled through a variety of options before settling on a sleepover with four of her closest friends. Of course, that wasn’t all she wanted. She also wanted me to take them for  mani/pedis. I agreed that as long as there were no more than five of them, we could do this.

The next day, I walked from my house down to Ventura Boulevard to Laurel Canyon and counted no less than four nail salons. It was early, so none of them were open, but I took down numbers and later called each one to see who had the best prices. Now I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve paid anyone to do my nails, but when I agreed to do this I was thinking a mani/pedi would cost somewhere between twenty and twenty five dollars.

The first place I called said it would be $33 for each girl. I called the next place. I think they wanted thirty. The next place was thirty-three again, and then the last place I called, Nails Spa Studio, said they could do it for twenty dollars each. That was more like it. However, a few days later when I went in to actually book the appointment, I was told I must have misunderstood and that it would be thirty, or thirty-three dollars each. I honestly don’t remember which.

I was more than a little annoyed and asked to speak to a manager.  After some back and forth, the manager agreed to give me a deal. I don’t want to say what the exact price was, because it would be unfair to expect them to give that same bargain to everyone, as they only agreed to this deal due to the mix up. Still, it was taken care of in a fair way.

So today I took five girls, who picked 10 colors of polish between them, for their mani/pedis, and I’m happy to say they all had a wonderful time. Everyone at  Nails Spa Studio took great care of the girls, giving them lots of attention, and even throwing in a flower decal for the birthday girl.

Then it was home to the requested birthday dinner of pot roast, followed by a sad movie, and then much giggling over all the things that twelve year old girls find so funny. There was also the obligatory junk food and cake, but knock wood, no one has thrown up or had any other issues. All in all, I’d say its gone better than expected.