Seriously. I loathe shopping at CosmoProf. I'm not thrilled with the experience Sally's offers. And I don't even go to that place that used to be Maly's.

Which leaves me with few — no, pretty much NO — local options for work-related supplies.

I do the vast majority of my supply shopping online. When I need something that I have to see and touch before I buy it, I make a trip to Fresno. Which, at 60 miles away at $4 a gallon for gas, even in the 33 mpg Sentra, I might as well pay shipping and mail order.

At that, Fresno still offers very little in the way of reliable professional supplies.

You know why I hate shopping at CosmoProf? Because they might as well have a sign on the door that says, "licensed cosmetologists and estheticians ONLY... licensed manicurists because we have to let you in."

One side of one aisle houses all the nail supplies in the store. The staff doesn't know the answers to any nail-related questions. Staff members will literally walk away in the middle of a conversation with me to help a hairstylist. Then forget that I'm still there. Half the time, I can't get to the nail supplies without rearranging their entire shipment of inventory for the week because, apparently, the nail supply (half an) aisle is the best place for all those boxes to get shoved while they stock the shelves for the entire rest of the store.

And they swear they have no idea what's in those boxes until they're opened. So if you walk in and ask, for example, "Do you have any of the OPI Black Shatter?" (which is already a sore point with me), they will look at me as though I have three eyes and am speaking Pig Latin. Then they say, "It might have come in, come back in a couple of days."

They don't appreciate atallmy pulling all those boxes away from the only area of the entirestore that I haveanyinterest in so that I can access thesupplies that I use in my business to earn my livelihood. Yes, they find that quite irritating indeed.

Then they usually don't have what I'm looking for anyway.

Sally's is better only in that they don't seem to know much about their hair supplies either. They don't really treat me like scum because I do nails, so much as they give the impression of incompetence overall. But their boxes are still stacked in front of the nail supplies, which still only account for one side of one aisle of the entire store. And they still don't know what's in those boxes.

Yes, there is an Asian nail supply store in Fresno. No, I still don't find many big brands there and I don't buy most of my products there ... but at least the place is full of nail supplies! And the people who run the storeknowwhat nail supplies are and arefriendlyand happy to talk aboutnails. And sometimes, when I buy a lot of stuff, they throw in a free glitter for me.

I am just so over walking into professional supply stores only to be reminded that the career that I have dedicated the last 18 years of my life to — that I expect to dedicate the next 30 years of my life to — has earned me all the respect and admiration of a fast food drive-thru guy in a paper hat from my colleagues in the same industry.