Digiridoo Your Nails? and other shades of OPI

~ A post contemplating the marriage of nail polish and hockey ~

For quite some time now I’ve thought that I really should write my own personal response to Robert Kroetsch’s long poem Seed Catalogue. Mine would be entitled Avon Catalogue, because just as surely as the annual mail (male) order seed catalogue signified a rite of passage for a rural lad coming of age in the 1940s, so the monthly Avon catalogue impacted this rural girl growing up in the 1970s. In fact, I think I have started that project. It’s in my jumble of papers somewhere. I’m hoping to buy a second filing cabinet under the pretense that then I’ll actually finish sorting out all my “stuff.” The point, however, is that there was something exotic and alluring about the names of all the nail enamels—like the “sudden and glamorous” names the (unreliable) narrator of The Studhorse Man (another Kroetsch offering) calls the reader’s attention to in chapter 24 of the novel:

…I have more than once remarked that the pleasure in listening to a hockey game, as I do each Saturday night during the long winter, resides not only in the air of suppressed and yet impending violence, but also in the rain upon our senses of those sudden and glamorous names…Mikita from the corner for the Black Hawks. A backhander by Laperriere. Kelly upended by Marshall. In for the puck goes Bobby Hull. Here is Delvecchio faking a shot…I sit contented in my clean white tub, the radio turned low, square and protective on the windowsill, glossy against the dark night beyond.

I don’t have to sit in my soaker tub to appreciate the potency of names and naming.

So what has this to do with my life in the here and now? Glad you asked. As a birthday present, James had given me carte blanche for esthetic services at any location of my choice. The Spa in Bells Corners is amazing with its wood and stone interior, housed in an old United church building, but I was sure the prices would have shot up in the six years since I’d been there. (I was right.) Instead, I chose Spa Haven over Lovely Nails or Nice One Nails, primarily because it’s within walking distance. Last Saturday I received a pedicure, and the esthetician let me choose from a basket of OPI polishes. Nobody, not even Avon, can beat OPI for product naming. I narrowed the selection down to three: Not So Bora-Bora-ing Pink, Digiridoo Your Nails?, and Mauving to Manitoba. Mauving won out. How could I resist that? I mean, these lacquers are not manufactured in Canada, and although I live in Ontario, I’m still a Manitoban at heart. (Manitoba has a way cooler provincial symbol. Yes, even with the whole provincial rebranding and subsequent redesign of the bison. Beats a triangular thing in a box any day. I don’t even know what that is supposed to be. A three-leaf clover? A pinwheel?)

That’s not all. I checked out OPI’s Web site, and it’s got so many cool names, I could spend hours running through them all. For Fall/Winter 2007, there’s the Russian Collection, featuring Krème de la Kremlin, St. Petersburgundy, and Cosmo-Not Tonight Honey, among others. The Australia Collection has the aforementioned Digiridoo Your Nails? but also Don’t Melbourne the Toast and Kangarooby. Some of their Classic Colors include Aphrodite’s Pink Nightie and Mrs. O’Leary’s BBQ. Even their “Garden Party” of softer shades contains amusing titles: Hearts & Tarts, Just Tea-sing!, Mod Hatter. How can I not admire the creative marketing genius behind all of this “modern opulence”? There’s got to be room for more greats, so I think I’ll suggest they start a Hockey Night in Canada Collection. I even have a lacquer name all picked out: Pass Me the Puk-atawagan. Now if only I can figure out about eleven more, maybe I can make a sales pitch—oops, I mean shot.

Update:
#1 Pass Me the Puk-atawagan
#2 Rock'em Sock'em Cherry Red
#3 Power Play Pamplemousse
#4 Over the Blue Line
#5 Shinny-ma-Rink-a-Dink-a-Dink Pink
#6 Here She Comes Now Singin' Mony Zamboni
#7 Stick-y Wickenheiser
#8 The Grape One #99