'Nailing' It...

I found myself again this morning evicted from my home with time to kill while yet another herd of strange feet wandered though our house - perusing the goods as it were. With several hours before I had to head to the doctor - I departed for the mall to wander - and on a whim, walked into a manicurists' storefront...deciding a manicure would surely pass the time. There were about five young Asian women hard at work and a slow parade of primarily white women being pampered. I will not tell you the name of the very young woman who served me but in the course of my visit I learned she had come to this country from Vietnam and had been here for about six months. She had left behind a husband and a son who was not even one year old. She told me she had one day off a week...and asked wistfully whether I had two. She told me it was her husband who looked after the baby in her home country and they that they both had to work "very hard". She also told me excitedly in her halting English that she was going back to Vietnam for two weeks to see her baby - more important than seeing her husband, with a small giggle. When I offered her what even I recognize as a massive tip - she exclaimed it was a lot of money for "someone like her". So it flashed in my head as I left the store - almost like a thunder-bolt - that there was no way that she could afford such a trip without the help of her employer and that it was entirely probable that the cost of that coveted ticket home would likely be deducted from her future earnings - some IOU for her continued loyalty. And I thought about the "First World" and the fact that this is Canada - where there are supposed to be such things as labour standards that protect people like this beautiful lonely girl - and the thousands like her - not in back alley operations - but right up front for all to see...in a large mall with thousands of un-seeing eyes walking by with nails as sharp as talons.