I’ve never been one to always have their nails done, but in high school, I did get them done frequently. This changed when I went to college because

a. I don’t know where to go

b. I’d rather spend money on a million other things than my nails

So now, I occasionally get my nails done at home, partly because my mom takes me along with her. I’ve grown to like my naked nails. I don’t have to worry about the color or anything. When I do get my nails done— I am not boring. I almost always have some sort of bright color, at home I have a signature blue I get a lot. This blue is out there but it’s not in your face. My nails never matched anything and I didn’t care it was easier that way.

Since being in Dallas I’ve gotten my nails done twice, both times with a friend and we went to MiniLuxe. MiniLuxe does a good job don’t get me wrong, but the vibes are weird in there, it feels sterile, and I always feel like I am getting ripped off somehow. So I decided to go to Castle Nail Spa because a while ago I asked people what nail salons they like and put it in my notes and all I had was Castle Nail Spa, so I figured they must be pretty good. I don’t know how things work there, so I nervously made an appointment online. I was 3 minutes late. I’m never late this stresses me out beyond belief. Turns out they didn’t care! Well, it was a weekday during school hours so they weren’t too busy. I tried checking in at the desk and they didn’t have my appointment down (I made it an hour before so tbh I’m not surprised). So I learned that was a noob move and that regulars don’t do that. There are a million colors to pick from and they’re all on their own palates showing what the polish looks like on the actual nail. I see a blue. It looks subtle. I’m wearing black so anything could work. Someone is trying to show me to my seat, so I decide that’s good enough and quickly pick out a nudish-pink for my toes. I normally get white on my toes so it’s easy, but I didn’t think that would look good with my dress. Well, I picked the wrong nudish-pink because it looks so dumb on my skin tone. It’s bad. I look over at my hand for a second and have a visceral reaction, and honestly looking back I think I gagged not sure tho. After doing one nail, the nail technician asked if the color was good. Obviously, I said. “yes, it looks so good thank you so much”! Why. Why. Why did I do that? It would’ve been easy to say never mind that color isn’t what I thought it would be, but I thought about the bucket of nail pallets she’d have to bring me to look through. That just sounded horrible in my head and I didn’t want to make her do that. I couldn’t just ask for another blue, because I no longer wanted blue, and needed to look at the colors myself. Naturally, I thanked her and immediately went to Target. I’m 21. When will this end? Why couldn’t I just say no?

I bought sparkly pink (subtle) fake nails to put on, I’ve done it before they always look a little wonky but they get the job done. I also grab some red polish just in case. I put one nail on and realized you could see the blue through the fake nail. So, I tried painting a fake nail to see if that would work. It looked pretty good but by that time I already had the nails on my hand and I am horrible at painting my nails it gets everywhere and looks like a child did them. So now I have cotton candy nails! Or gender reveal nails! or Unicorn?