I didn’t cut my fingernails often enough as a kid. I don’t know why. It was just one of those things that fell through the cracks. Normally it wasn’t a big deal. Nobody went around looking at my fingers on a daily basis or anything. Occasionally I would scratch someone on accident and get embarrassed, but most of the time I guess it just didn’t come up.
Then there was the time in karate class where one of my instructors noticed my overgrown fingernails and made a big deal out of it in front of the whole class. “Man,” he said in front of everybody, “you’ve got to trim those fingernails down, man!” My face flushed as I nodded, but he went on. “I’m serious man, you’re going to scratch somebody in here, man.” Unsurprisingly, after being humiliated in front of a group of my peers, I did. In fact, I became pretty self-conscious about keeping them trimmed. I got one of those small nail clippers with a little metal chain so you could attach them to your key ring, and kept them on my computer desk. I was never a nail biter, but whenever I was waiting on my computer to do something, or laying in bed watching television, I’d grab those little clippers and just clip-clip-clip away at my fingers until each one bled.
Later in life, after I got a desk job, I fell into a regular and more reasonable schedule. I cut my fingernails at my desk, every Monday morning. Every Monday, I sit down at my desk, turn on my computer, and trim my nails as I wait for my machine to boot up. Every Monday. Some Mondays I get coffee before I do it and sometimes I don’t get coffee ’til after I’m done. But like clockwork, that’s when I do it. Every Monday morning.
Yesterday I reached down into my pants pocket to retrieve my cell phone and was surprised when my fingernails snagged on the cotton lining. The feeling was unfamiliar. I took a close look at my hands. There was dirt underneath my nails. Usually I keep them short enough that this doesn’t happen.
As of yesterday, going all the way back to December 24, I’ve missed five Mondays of work in a row. It hasn’t been five weeks since I’ve cut my nails, of course. A few weeks ago I picked up another pair of clippers to keep in my laptop bag and used those. But as we enter our fifth week of being off work, Mondays don’t mean much at the moment.
None of the days mean anything right now, during the furlough. For a couple of weeks, Susan and I relied on our phones to tell us what the date was. Now we’re using it to remind us what day it is. Every so many days, the kids don’t go to school and that’s our reminder that a weekend has arrived. In so many ways, it seems like our lives are completely frozen in time.
And yet, the fingernails still grow.