Life’s short. You have to experience everything at least once.
No you don’t. Guys, you can skip this one: nail polish.
About a year ago I was in Washington, visiting my daughter Mahdiyeh. She had told me that Saman, our mutual friend and her co-worker at VOA (Parazit), had been borrowing her nail polish. For his nails. When we met, I thought they looked really cool. I think they were black at the time. Nothing girly.
A few nights later we got together with some friends at a concert in the basement of some bar. As we were drinking beer at a table in the back, Saman asked Mahdiyeh if she had any nail polish in her purse. She gave it to him and he started doing his nails. I said I want to do my nails too! They didn’t hesitate for a second. They had my nails painted in two seconds. Dark blue. Cool!
You know, you reach a certain age (I’ll be 49 in March) and you want to try things you never imagined. Or you try things you never dared before, because of what society may think. But you no longer care how others may react, especially if whatever you’ve decided to do is totally harmless. You do it because you want to. You don’t think the consequences would be too bad or unbearable. Just unusual. A man with colored nails would certainly draw attention, but so what? You’re comfortable with yourself.
The day after the concert, Mahdiyeh put the finishing touches on her work of art. Uneven orange and blue stripes. My nails really looked like art, kinda Monet-ish or maybe even Van Gogh-ish. I was astonished how cool they looked. I decided to keep them and proudly show them off to everybody. I was spending time with friends and they all laughed it off as temporary insanity. Just having fun.
The first person who commented on my nails, outside my circle of friends, was a ticket lady at the Iceland Air counter at the airport as I was boarding for a flight to London. “Very nice nails!” she said as I handed by ticket. “Oh thank you!” I said with a smile, a little startled. “My daughter painted them.”
I arrived in London and the immigration officer, a Muslim woman in full hejab, must have thought I was a freak. Her head was spinning from the answers I was giving her about my job (iranian.com), my country of residence (none), reason for visiting London (haminjoori, maybe work for the BBC). Plus I’m sure she must have noticed my nails. She wasn’t too happy or sure about allowing me to enter the UK.
I got on the underground and went to stay a few days with my friends, Hossein and Fatemeh, who are both artists. They didn’t ask about my nails and I had gotten so used to them that I forgot to mention anything. After a couple of hours I glanced at my nails and realized I should say something. “What do you think?” I asked as I flaunted my nails. “Mahdiyeh did them. Cool, nah?” What were Hossein and Fatemeh going to say? You’ve lost your mind? They would never say that. They let it slide. They know I have a few loose screws.
A couple of days later they took me to a birthday party at the home of one of their Iranian friends. I didn’t know anyone there and for the first time I started to feel uncomfortable about my fashion statement. My usual excuse that it was my daughter’s idea (I’m heterosexual, bekhoda!) did not get much sympathy. Their reaction was like “… baleh… cheh jaaleb…” and what they were really saying was “een koss khol kiyeh digeh?”
I decided to clean my nails for a meeting with a BBC editor. I was looking for a part-time job while in London and didn’t want to look too outrageous during the interview. Afterward, I was in no rush to paint my nails again. It was a fun, interesting experience, but I had no intention of making it a permanent part of my look.
Then a couple of months later I was at a pharmacy in Budapest and I saw a rack of nail polish. I was bored and had a lot of idle time. I thought why not experiment with some fresh colors? I bought purple, orange and yellow polish and applied them like parallel lines, similar to what Mahdiyeh had done in Washington.
The next day, I went to the corner store to buy some lighters. I didn’t know how to say “four” in Hungarian, so I showed the cashier four fingers and pointed at the lighters for sale. Her eyes were glued on my nails and her head followed my colorful fingers as they flashed in front of her. She was thrown completely off balance. I don’t think she’d seen anything like it — on a man, or woman.
I went back to my apartment and immediately began cleaning my nails. I didn’t think it was cool any more. The thrill of doing something experimental had worn off. Thinking about it now, I can’t believe I tolerated having painted nails for that long.
So no, you don’t have to experience everything. I wonder what I’ll do next…
