I Nailed It

If you're imagining this post to be a pat on the back for some wonderful thing I’d perfected, you’d be so wrong.

Do not fret….I still think I’m fabulous. I’m just painfully aware of my limitations.

One physical attribute I’ve yet to master is the art of growing ten nails to a long, fabulous length all at the same time. This is evidently an unattainable dream…as I’ve tried for many, many moons…always with the same end result. If I’m lucky, eight of my ten nails are goah-jous…the other two have been ostracized and banished by the rest and are lookin’ somewhat sickly. They’ve basically given up…and their self-esteem is in the toilet.

I must interject here that as much as I love long nails, my laptop does not appreciate their glamorous panache. My typos literally triple…and “Word” becomes positively gleeful with its red, green and blue highlights of my spelling/verb/grammatical errors. This is why, for the most part, I keep my nails boyishly short, practical and keyboard-appropriate.

And so, on the rare occasions where I resolutely decide it truly matters, enter the Broadway Stick-On Nails. These are nothing like the stick-on nails of days gone by…these babies look authentic and will last a good solid three days…if you don’t do any laundry, rinse a dish or attempt to wash your hair.

Hey, beauty comes at a price.

I sat next to a woman at a wedding with a beautiful French manicure…and I complimented her on her incredible style and taste. She responded with “Thanks! They’re stick on…see?” She then proceeded to pull out the box (tucked discreetly in her bag, in the event that one spontaneously flung itself, rocket-like, off her finger…and possibly into someone’s lobster bisque and needed to be immediately replaced), smiling all the while like a cat who’d swallowed a very large, very rare, boy-this-is-the-best-secret-ever bird.

I was amazed…and told her so. We spent a good twenty minutes marveling over the superior craftsmanship of these drugstore-bargain nails.

I am forever indebted to that woman for sharing her wonderful secret…and if I could remember her name, I’d thank her publicly.

It takes about 20 minutes to go from stubby to sublime…and then I’m admiring my suddenly slender, perfectly manicured fingers whilst I drive, haphazardly stumble through typing an article, or just about anything in between.

The problem with these gems is that when they’re done (i.e.: when the superglue becomes less than “super”), they’re DONE. No telltale warning signs…no heads-up whatsoever. One minute they’re on…the next, you’re wondering why your pointer finger suddenly looks so…unhealthy…compared to the rest. Then it hits you: “Oh, crap. My window of opportunity is about to slam shut...possibly on my fingers (pun intended)…it’s all downhill from here. Where'd I put that stupid box 'o nails?”

And so it goes. The nails pop off at random (and sometimes the most inopportune) moments. One will turn up on the shelf in the linen closet…one on the floor mat of the car. Tonia called me today from her second home in Florida to report that one turned up in her sitting room down there. (I’d given up on looking for it....I mean, it could have been anywhere.)

Most frightening, though, was when my printer started acting up. Paper jams galore…and I couldn't figure out why. I’d even swabbed the little roller-thingies that pull the paper through with cotton swabs dipped in alcohol…all to no avail. Imagine my surprise when I hunkered down with a flashlight and peered into the bottom workings of the printer and spotted something instantly familiar. I still don't know how it could have gotten there....

...but it's good to finally know what became of it….