Wednesday, November 29, 2006

I probably don't want to know the answer to this.

Funny place Welshpool.

I found myself today in Boots - and as the store had been completely rearranged I had to wander round most of it in order to locate the one thing I needed. And there in front of me, and occupying a fantastic amount of shelf space, was the most comprehensive selection of nail care requisites - a display maybe nearly 3m long by 2m high. Files, rasps, buffers, creams, lotions, potions, pushers, prodders, cuticle thingeys, removers with acetone and removers without, scissors straight, scissors rounded. Cotton wool. Glass fibre nail wraps (what?) And false nails of every length, size - for flat and for 'regular' nails - and colour; pink, pale, shiney, matt (I sound like a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins) Some with flowers on. Some beglittered. I could go on with this catalogue of artifice.

Not only was one's every manicure need anticipated but also those of your feet - behold a range of false toe nails......'with easy-apply tab'. God help us.

I was transfixed. Somebody must buy this stuff along with the polishes found on the cosmetics aisle - it seemingly occupied more space than the soaps and showergels.

And all this in a small shop in a small town. What do the inhabitants of Welshpool and its environs do with all those false nails? Most of Welshpool's inhabitants appear to be strangers to both soap and washing machine, let alone French manicure. The soft and dainty hand is little in evidence - more the podgy paw clutching fag, pie and pushchair.

Shelves stacked with packs - 25 to a pack and only 10 fingers to a hand. Hundreds, thousands, millions..... I can't make the numbers add up. And the thought of all those falsies coming unstuck in sandwiches and passionate moments is too gruesome to contemplate

So no, I don't really want the answer. In this case ignorance is probably bliss.

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