Relief for My Sole---Or Not

Every woman I know has a fantasy about having some sort of live-in help. Perhaps it's a nanny, maybe a chef, maybe it's a hot pool boy, whatever, at some point you are fantasizing about someone taking over some aspect of life that you just don't want to deal with any longer. My fantasy person changes on a daily basis. Recently I was ardently wishing for a live-in nail technician. I'm completely serious. I wanted someone here to give me a pedicure on a daily basis. Before you roll your eyes or scoff at me, think this through. During a pedicure, someone massages your feet and calves, exfoliates, rubs lotion on you, and basically makes your feet look like they have never touched the floor.

It's awesome.

I held out for YEARS because I have a this weird hang-up about feet, which I will not get into right now, but now I am addicted to the pedicure. It's the best thing EVER. It's also indulgent and can get expensive if kept up as a regular habit, which is why my feet now resemble Hobbit feet. Well, as you know from other posts, I am always looking for some quick and inexpensive solutions to my problems so of course I came up with a plan. I would just re-create the spa pedicure experience here at home. I was sure I could do it, and it would be awesome because I could watch Glee on my DVR while pampering myself and maybe even enjoy some wine. It would be totally perfect.

Nope. Not perfect. Sucky. Why was it sucky, you ask? Because I relied on a craptastic item that I thought would help me create the "spa experience at home" and I should have just run over it with my car. That waste of plastic and electricity is known as the HoMedics Sole Therapy Foot Bath. Google it right now...I'll wait. Now, completely erase it from your memory. Please IGNORE that one good review it received on Amazon.com. That person must work for the company or spend her day walking on nails, so anything is a relief from that torture. I'm serious. First of all, it claims to have "soothing heat" but it doesn't warm the water at all. You have to put hot water in the foot bath and then this thing will keep it basically lukewarm for you for about 20 minutes. Sweet. Secondly, the "massaging action" is really just a MASSIVE vibration of the entire unit that is so loud it woke my 6-year old from a dead sleep even through 2 closed doors. It sounds like a jet engine. I had to turn the volume up on the TV to 17 just to hear Will and Sue Sylvester exchange insults. Also, you have to manually rub your feet back and forth across these TINY roller balls located in the base of the unit...those are the "dual massaging rollers" touted on the box.

This was not a relaxing experience. It was a loud, lukewarm, kind of tickly, HIGHLY irritating experience. By the time I had exfoliated, lotioned, and painted my nails, it was 11:30 at night. I had to sleep with my toes poking out of the side of the bed so that I didn't mess up my pedicure. I DIDN'T EVEN GET ANY WINE. It's a really good thing that I managed to get that foot spa for free, because had I paid for it I would have driven it to the company and thrown it through the window like this: