Ivy Day Spa

So, I was wandering around Laguna Beach on a sunny and blustery afternoon after finishing a satisfying brunch complete with very spicy Bloody Mary’s (Maries? How does one pluralize «Mary»?).
In my desire to never leave this wonderful place and mind-​set again, I decided to go crazy and get my nails done. Fun! Ivy has a view of the ocean and a line of state-​of-​the-​art-​ish massage chairs. Interesting.
Before committing, though, I spoke with some woman wandering around in strange shoes and asked for tips. NOT acrylics. JUST tips. (I don’t like all that filing. It gives me the ickies.) I even explained to her what I meant by tips: Just the white part, not all the goopy stuff. She says «Sure sure, we do that.»
Lured by the chairs and confidence in my instructions, I walked past a different woman (not a customer) asleep on of the massage chairs (See? They were beckoning me!) and was placed at the other end of the row. Assigned to me was a pleasant looking older woman, who hardly spoke except to repeatedly say, «It’s so cold!»
in the end, my instructions were entirely and completely NOT transmitted by Lady Strange Shoes (like she thought to herself «yeah yeah lady, we’re just going to do whatever» and went about her day) and I had a VERY hard time making myself understood.
Fast forward a full hour and half (1.5 hours! Holy Bejesus Timewaster!) and much «this is crooked”-ing and «wait, you glued my pinkie”-ing, I had a full set of acrylics that looked AWFUL.
Tips askew. Uneven distribution of acrylic. I left with a partially-​shellacked thumb. (I should mention: peeling acrylic off of one’s skin is a delicate and patient process, particularly when nearly every nail is as thick as two quarters stacked.) At least one finger was acrylic-​ed UNDER the nail as well as on top (weird).
Apparently, she had not a fucking clue what she was doing. But I did pay $ 38 bucks for my experience.
Oh, and the chair was broken.