Princess Chips a Nail in the Midwest

Aloha from Indianapolis! So far I have seen the inside of my hotel room, the mall, and a man-made lake. I am pretty sure I could be in any small town, USA, but the taxi had an Indiana license plate on it, so I’m pretty sure I ended up in the right place.

I’m here for work. The next few days are going to be busy, and hopefully not humiliating, as I worry about chewing through all that I have proverbially bitten the fuck off. I am here trying to impress people, and goodness knows I am not really so good at that. I brought my new flat iron and have let my hair go greasy for the last couple of days so that I can wash it and style it to perfection (er, somewhat closer than normal, anyway) first thing tomorrow morning. And I also decided that since this is such a short trip, I should try and fly with just a carry-on. Having learned nothing from my honeymoon just a few short months ago when I was forced to go back up and check my carry-on and go through the whole security line again because I somehow thought jumbo bottles of shampoo totally qualified as clear plastic 5 oz. bottle, I got stopped at security again. They did not laugh at my all friendly-like and ask, “Is this some kind of test?” again. Nay, this time they just confiscated my shampoo and toothpaste with nary a friendly word.

To top it off, I broke a nail getting into the jerry-rigged taxicab. Side note: if you are ever in Indianapolis, let me know. I can give you the plate number of a cab I might avoid taking at all costs, if I were you. So I decided I deserved a manicure once I got here, instead of, I don’t know, getting ahead on all this work that I am so stressed about.

And off I trotted to the mall. Nordstroms beckons me no matter what state I am in. There I found exactly no place to get nails done, but quite a wide range of helpful sales people who all gave me different directions on how to get to a nearby strip mall that might indeed have a nail place. The one bit of direction that they could all agree on, unfortunately, was that I would need to cross a Very Large Road. Otherwise known as A HIGHWAY. So off I went, running across a highway with no crosswalk in the Midwest with my hoodie drawn tight around my face because I was battling the very same wind that just a little earlier shook my bitty plane like a fucking Polaroid picture, and managed to not get run over. Then I twisted my ankle walking in the grass because Indianapolis apparently doesn’t believe in sidewalks any more than it believes in crosswalks.

Naturally, the nail place was closed on Sundays. So I went to P.F. Changs and drowned my sorrows in chicken lettuce wraps, and bought a nail file on the way back to the hotel. Hours after I started out. So far, this trip is intimidating me.