I have a bandaid on all ten fingers. You are wondering why, aren’t you? Okay, I’ll blame it on the lack of coffee and expound on that one.

I have a tendency to have weak fingernails. I sometimes refer to them as Fingerfilms, since they are not nearly as sturdy as NAILS. I am always trying to stay on my biotin and keep nail hardener on them and let them grow out to a modest length…though not TOO long, because God knows i might finally become sexually active again at some point… but i digress… which is something I do well….

ANYWAY. I use my hands a lot. I’m a hands-on kinda gal. The inevitable nail-biter movie, painting, building furniture, typing, pulling my hair out, flipping people off… and Sometimes i hate the way my fingernails look, and there’s nothing worse than giving a Full Frontal Finger to someone, and them paying more attention to your wretched fingernails, than to the more pertinent message your middle digit offers.

If i have a date or a coffee meeting or have to go out in public socially, i’ll often break down and put false fingernails on. But inevitably, they give me trouble, because false is false, and i can’t always get them to shape correctly, and this leads to starting over with another fingernail, after i have glued one on…and that causes quite a bit of irritation and sometimes some actual tearing of cuticles or other tender finger-skin.

My last go round with this yesterday was a disaster from the start. After several tries, i got them looking like naturally fake nails, and then i made the mistake of using the nail polish that looks like house paint. It was horrid, so i had to take those two coats off and start again. But finally i got them looking good and then was painting a picture and got paint all over them and under them. I’ve been known to get frustrated when a paintbrush doesn’t give me the look i want on the board, (and yes, i use boards, not canvas…fiber board or wall board–sort of like that pegboard you use in the garage to hang tools on…but the kind without the holes..although my next project is to actually paint a picture on one of those pegboards….There i go, digressing again…)

So I use my fingers when I paint sometimes. That makes for dirty fingernails. Which is at once an unacceptable thing to me after the creation process is done. I have to scrub them with brushes and that either serves to loosen the fingernail glue and make them drop off into the sink drain, or in what seems a contradiction, the nails will neither allow me to get them clean nor fall off–no matter how much i abuse them. Then i’m stuck with some fingernails that wouldn’t budge if i sat backward on a motorcycle and dragged them on the pavement, and some that fall off with the mere suggestion of hot water and soap. The result is a pair of hands with some stubborn, multicolored filthy-looking nails, and some torn, bleeding, rough with dollops of dried glue that create a texture like the surface of the moon. After a volcanic eruption.

Last night, i stood at the sink with my remaining nails in scalding water and soap and forced the fake nails off. I buffed my nails, cleaned them, applied vitamin E oil to them and donned them all with bandaids. They will heal, and i will not pursue the evils of false nails again. If i go out in public with bandaids on all ten fingers, that will be just as unsightly as short, damaged fingernails. Reminds me of those drug commercials where the side effects of the drug are worse than the condition the drug was for.

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