You know how when you have an itch and someone else scratches it for you, it just doesn’t give the itch the satisfaction it needs?
Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was going to this elegant party. I am not blessed with long, thick, healthy fingernails, and if I want my nails to ever look elegant, I have to glue some on. I instantly become a Woman-With-Nails (WWN).
Trying to scratch an itch with fake fingernails is almost as bad as having someone else do it for you. They’re sort of smooth on the ends instead of sharp, so it feels more like you’re rubbing the spot with a marble.
I’ve decided to keep these claws on my paws until after the holidays … that is if I can stand it. But this brand of elegance comes with a price. You don’t realize how much stuff you can’t do with long nails until you have them.
Like type. My nail keeps hitting the “3” key instead of the “e”, so a typical sentence looks like this: “My nail k33ps hitting the “3” k3y inst3ad of th3 “3”, so a typical s3nt3nc3 looks lik3 this”. My typiknh is sorri, byt h3y, my handw st8ll look el3gant!
When I try to get a dab of petroleum jelly out of the jar to put on my lips, I come up with a scoopful embedded beneath the nail instead of a dab on my fingertip. Trying to wash my ears feels like I’m washing them with Popsicle sticks.
Fastening regular buttons is a chore for a WWN. The little ones at the collars are impossible … I have to get my kids to help. If I asked you to button up your shirt with a pair of spoons, you’d get pretty close to what this feels like.
Zippers can be tricky, too. My husband and I went to a costume party once dressed as Sonny and Cher. He was Cher, I was Sonny. Anyway, he had on these long fingernails and on his first trip to the bathroom, he discovered he couldn’t get his zipper down by himself. After that, every time he needed to go, he would come find me and say “Honey, let’s go to the bathroom.”
On the way to this same party, he was trying to change the channel on the car radio, and his nails kept turning down the bass instead. Frustration overtook him and he shouted, “I don’t know how ya’ll do ANYTHING with these things on!”
A WWN knows: It takes practice, practice, practice and patience, patience, patience.
Picking up small things, like paperclips, is like trying to grab them with chopsticks. Peeling price tags off things is impossible. Remember, these nails are not sharp, so imagine peeling off one of these tags with a hockey puck.
Something as simple as opening a door becomes a premeditated activity. When approaching a door with a handle instead of a knob, a fingernailed lady pauses a moment to plan how she will grab it. If you just go for it, chances are you’ll catch a nail on the door as your hand wraps around the handle. No, a WWN will SLLLLIIIIIDE her hand gently between the door and the handle so as not to disturb the elegance of the moment.
I don’t wear contacts, but I hear from friends that trying to put them in tops their list of “Bad Things About Fake Nails”. I would imagine that the ophthalmologists of the world have seen their fair share of “FFS”, or Fake Fingernail Syndrome.
Another bad thing is that a WWN can’t stop tapping them. It’s hard to explain, but when you’re not used to having these clicky things on your fingers, it’s really fun to drum your fingers. A WWN drums her fingernails until the rest of the household is at the point of mutiny.
But hey, we don’t care, because our hands look great.
