I have a very wide array of friends, an eclectic group some might say. Friends who make me laugh. Friends who don’t mind when I cry. Friends who are total geeks and proud of it. Friends who get me when no one else does. Friends I never talk to but I can connect back with in an instant. Friends who I see everyday and never get tired of. Lauren is one of those friends. She like the little sister I never had but always wanted. I love Lauren because we can go from the most serious conversation about life, love, and other mysteries to being completely silly seamlessly. Tuesday is our normal ‘lunch date’, but we also try to hang out at least one other day/evening each week. This week we decided to treat ourselves to pedicures on Sunday after church.

Pedicures are always an experience because no matter where you get them done, you get dinner and a show. Our new favorite spot is the ‘pedicure palace’ near campus. The prices are quite reasonable and the show is phenomenally painful. For $25 dollars we get to sit in massage chairs in the back room and soak our feet in a foot spa. Two different women who appear to speak no English join us in the back to ‘pamper and cleanse’ our feet while talking to each other in a foreign language. If you were the paranoid type (which I am), you might think that these women were talking about you by their gestures and giggles but because you have no real idea what they are saying… you can’t be sure. So to combat the apparent mockery, Lauren and I sat texting each other because while we didn’t know if they were talking about the fact that we had not shaved lately or how their children were doing in school we couldn’t be sure whether or not they could understand what we said. So we sped up our eventual carpel tunnel diagnosis and let our thumbs do the talking. After a good soak, massage, and cleaning, we were directed to sit at our neighboring stations and wait for the great pedicure artist to finish the job.

This is where the show begins…… the owner/boss/slave driver of the pedicure palace is quite a sight to behold. She was no taller than 5’3 but her shrill voice added at least 12 more inches to her stature. She was dressed in what can only be described as a fashion masterpiece/nightmare. There was leggings, gauze, heels and gold lame’ eyeshadow just to name a few of the key ingredients and no matter what she was doing she was barking orders in Vietnamese to no one in general. She was definitely in complete control of the situation. She would be intently working on your nails and yell something and like soldiers, the rest of the salon would stand up and complete a task. To be frank, I was impressed. If I could motivate college kids to work in such away, I could take of the world. Besides the commanding presence, the most impressive thing about Kim is the simple fact that she is a multitasking beast. She’s working on 4-10 women’s feet and/or hands at the same time, orchestrating 5 staff members and carrying on a separate conversation with every woman in the place. The reason she’s so successful is simple; she demands respect and is amazing at what she does.

So as Lauren and I are sitting in adjacent chairs awaiting our time with the pedicure Picasso, I can’t help but be mesmerized by this woman. Well, mesmerized and a bit terrified. By the time she made it to me, I was on a sugar high and wasn’t paying much attention to my surrounds. Not a good idea. She asked me a question, and I failed to respond immediately. BAD IDEA. She pwned me. Barked an order at me, the customer. I was so proud of her having that freedom I almost teared up. Someone pwned me. It was amazing. Pwned me because I was interrupting her flow, her pattern, her perfection. It was like the Visa commercial where all these people are paying for their food in a cafeteria-like environment and everything is going smoothly ’til that one fool pulls out cash. Plain and simple, that fool was me.

As I finally left the salon with freshly painted hot pink with white flowered toenails, I couldn’t help but reflect on Kim. This was a woman who thrived on control. Thrived on everything flowing a certain way and did not take kindly to those who messed with her life. I wasn’t upset she has snapped at me. Instead, I was almost jealous that because of her environment, success, position, and cultural she could be who she was, snap at who she wanted. How many times in a day do I wish I could do the same? How many times do I wish I could pwn everyone around me? Yet, I can’t. As a believer I’m called to act with grace, live with love. There’s no pleasurable pwning to those who love the Lord. Nope, I looked. We rebuke each other. We refine each other. But we don’t snap at one another for power, prestice, or position.

Lauren likes to jokingly refer to herself as my bitch. Not the nicest of terms in the least bit, but it comes from the fact that she helps me so much and I rely on her so heavily when she is helping out. But in a day full of girl talk, girl fun, Kim reflections, I wonder how many other people feel as if I’ve treated them as Lauren jokes that I treat her. Do I treat others with grace? Or is the true desire of my heart to be the Kim in my world?