First world problems and nail polish is a clever choice of weapon, Universe.

Here is the definition of #firstworldproblems for those of you who may be confused by the reference.

Back in the very early 1990’s, my parents paid for me to take a trip to Indonesia for six weeks (I really did have THE BEST PARENTS EVER. Um, actually, I still do). It me took two days and three plane changes to get to Bali. It was actually insane for a teenager, but I knew no fear. Anyway, I had a long stop over in L.A. and that was the first place that I saw something that stopped my heart and actually made me feel like I really was in la-la land.

Fluorescent pink, perfectly manicured nails. Two hands worth of precisely shaped, active-length, squared-off nails painted THE MOST perfect neon pink in the history of pink. Be still my adolescent heart. I thought that if I had to, that I would spend the rest of my days searching for that colour and would not rest until I found it. And I wasn’t even a huge nail polish-y kind of girl. But something about that valley girl with her bitchin’ nails torque’d me in a such a way that over twenty years later, I’m still in pursuit of that fucking nail polish.

And now, I find myself the proud mother of a little girl who is very girly, and enjoys nail polish as part of her ‘look’. So, today, she wanted her nails painted and I figured, why not try yet another pink in my quest? So I painted her tiny little nails with her choice (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Rockstar Pink – which, incidentally isn’t NOT pink at all, and is actually purple with a shitload of sparkles in it – WHO is responsible for naming these colours?) and then I decided to try the Nicole by O-P-I City Pretty Rose on my own nails. And you know what?

Surprise! Not the right colour! It looked SOclose in the bottle but I’ve now decided (again) that nail polish is an asshole. And that Miss Perfect Nails in the Most Perfect Colour was actually a plant (by the Universe, the government, an ex-boyfriend? I don’t know), put there for me to see and to ruin my life. And also, I decided that I will never, ever, ever buy another pink nail polish again.

Well, until the next time the ABSOLUTE-FOR-SURE IT’S-RIGHT-THIS-TIME bottle of polish jumps off the store shelf and into my cart. I’m too weak to turn it away. What can I say?