The scene: You're immobile somewhere. Whether it be sitting in a waiting room at a doctor's office, standing in horrendous line at a cash register while Christmas shopping, or driving your car - and it doesn't need to be a long distance.
Time is ticking: You don't have a whole lot to do. You look around. Maybe pick up a magazine while waiting. Check your phone to see if someone sent you a text message. You put it in your pocket. You pull it out again to check the time. You put it back. You look around again, attempting to people watch, and then you think you feel your phone vibrating in your pocket and you hurry to whip it out and discover it was the phantom vibrating phone, but you don't want to look crazy, so you pretend like you're responding to a message by creating a new one. You look through your contacts and try to find someone you need to contact or might have something to say to them. You compose and send message, feeling a little accomplished as you continue to wait...
What else do you do: You feel like you've exhausted all of your options when all of a sudden you notice something. And you're REALLY bothered by it. It's a fingernail. It is out of place. It is a little longer than the rest, or it's at a weird angle, or it's got some dirt under it. Whatever it is, it's bothering you. It is completely irrational as to why it's bothering you. But it is.
Next thought: Wait, no! I can't bite my nails to fix the problem, remember what happened last time you tried to fix this problem that so bothered you by biting your nails? It started with one. You bit that one and maybe you were appeased by the one nail, but then you realized that there are more disfigurements on the rest of your fingernails. This is exactly what happened with Hitler.
(Image by Alex Carr)
They tried to appease him by giving him a little land in hopes of satisfying his need. Or like if you give a mouse a cookie. It's the same principle. You thought this would work for you as well. But you have gone past the point of no return... because now you see that all of your fingernails need some work on them, and you don't have nail clippers on you.And you remember: The last time you had this dilemma you put your nail clippers in a particular spot so that they would be easily accessible so this way you didn't end up with the painful side-effect of nail biting - the infection. Yes. You hated it the last time you did it. You bit and kept biting. The nail was for the most part even. But no matter how hard you tried, how meticulously you tried to bite the nail off or pull the rest of it off, you get some sort of nail/skin left hanging off the corner. And this is bothering you SO much more than the initial nail being uneven to begin with. You envision exactly where you left the nail clippers wishing beyond all doubt that it was socially acceptable to have a nail clipper on your keychain, or to carry it in your pocket, along with your wallet and chapstick. But it isn't. And what did you do. You kept biting it. You kept gnawing and gnawing and gnawing. You try to pick that little piece of cuticle that's hanging on for dear life tighter than Rose held on to Jack in the North Atlantic. It's hard to get a hold of because your saliva is all over it. But you finally get a hold of it. You pull real fast. Like you're ripping a band-aid off. And you get it. And you're relieved. But after that initial sting is gone, you see the blood creeping out of the side of your nail. It's as if you just opened the doors this past morning to the shoe store for the new Air Jordan shoes. And sadly this open wound always leads to infection. It's either nasty food from your mouth getting in there, or just dirt, but it gets infected and puffy and whenever you bump it into anything, literally anything, it hurts. So. bad. And you tell yourself that nail biting isn't worth it and that you'll never do it again. Because this pain is so unbearable and just not worth it.
(And you did this all the while not trying to attract too much attention to yourself and your little battle, but when you look up, you notice that someone was watching you and then they give you a smile because they are familiar with what you just went through, and they're happy for you too!)
Back to waiting: So you yearn for it. You tell yourself this time you can wait. And you try to wait. You cringe. You're hoping the nurse will call you back soon. That the line will move faster. But none of it happens. You feel another phantom vibration. This time, you create a text for that one friend you know will respond. Even while you're texting, that nail is dragging against the chalkboard in the back of your mind.
You break: You can't take it anymore. You go for it. You bite. You gnaw. You pull. You bleed and then you go on to later get the infection. You feel the pain. And you told yourself you didn't ever want to be in that position again. But here you are. You finally get back home, and you stare at your nail clippers and try to shape up the nails, and make them look decent, but it's no use. Because your nails look like this:
You have blood on one finger. Most of your nails are down to skin and they're raw. And now you're more bothered by the condition of your nails now than you were before.Later in the future: You're waiting. And you this cycle repeats again.
Why, just why isn't it socially acceptable to not only carry nail clippers in public, but to also clip your nails in public? If only, then this battle would end. But this is probably one of the longest wars human beings have ever been apart of. Is there an end in sight? Maybe if things like this can get mass produced:
But until then, keep fighting!
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