my stupid nail…

I’ve always been proud with my finger nail – all the right & nice shape but most importantly it’s strong, nothing I do can broke it (that includes washing the clothes with hand)…that is until today…whereby I was putting on the newly washed bedsheet on the stupid matress, those thick & heavy kind which was nice to sleep on but makes people feel like they’re better off sleeping on the floor everytime the bedsheet needs changing.

Anyway, i was in the task of slipping the bedsheet on one corner of the matress, to make things worse its the corner beside the wall which doesn’t give u much space to stand so that u have to stand on the matress and put the bedsheet on it at the same time, I know its sounds impossible (made me think that I’ll be capable to perform some balancing act at the circus if I do this more often). I was succesful a few times before, but today the matress somehow stupidly slipped from my hand & brushed my forefinger nail on the right hand that was holding it just a few seconds before. Although I didnt feel any pain there & then, I’m definitely sure that I hurt myself, took a look on the forefinger & bingo! Blood is oozing out from below the nailbed – red, thick & dark blood. But no pain whatsoever. I think the nerve’s been damaged, or it’s just simply that the pain stimulus is way over the detectable threshold of my nerve, u know, something like when the energy’s too much the electricel device go haywire cause it can’t handle it….Took a tissue to wrap my finger & press it hard to avoid the unbearable pain that will come eventually, then let it go after some time. Still, no pain, so I decided to continue with my task of putting on the stupid bedsheet over the stupid matress, taking care of not using my right forefinger, thus the stupidly impossible task becomes more stupidly hard. But i managed to finish it, with the conclusion that this is the hardest chore I ever did in my life.

Time to tend to my forefinger – I unwrap & examine it, suprised to see that the fingernail is as good as new, I expect it to be broken… I can clearly see the line where the nail broke from the flesh, the source of the oozing blood. That’s the moment when for the first time in my life I don’t feel proud for the hardness of my nail, instead I felt that it is stupidly hard, it should broke at the edge – the nailbed wont be wounded if it did; but instead it is intact and pull the nailbed – flesh & all with it.

Stupidly hard nail.

I washed the wound with clear water, wondering if I should cut the nail because it is so stupid, besides the fact that a short nail will be more easy to look out for while having a wound in the nailbed. But I think that it’ll be painful if I cut it now, as it will move the wound too, besides it didn’t hurt anymore, & the bleeding had stopped. So I decided against it & just wash the nail clean.

The moral of the story is: everything is the way they are for a reason – a nail that broke easily is a protective function to prevent the nailbed from getting hurt, something like a lizard’s tail…So my fingernail that’s harder than everyone elses’ isn’t necessarily a good thing, except when I’m showing my lovely manicured long nail to friends that always have those short stubby nail because it does a very good work in protecting their nailbed.
My stupid but nice nail.