Just Being Real Takes Less Work

When I paid my telephone bill a while back I couldn’t help but notice the fingernails on the woman who took my money. They were about a foot long. Hideous fingernails that made me cringe. They were painted bright blue and had doodads imbedded in the paint. They clicked with every move she made.

She couldn’t pick anything up with her fingertips, this woman, but curled her fingers up and used the pads and sides. I couldn’t help but wonder how she got dressed and if her husband was afraid to get close to her in the night.

Sometimes I have quarter-inch long fingernails, especially on my left hand, which I don’t use as much as my right. More often my fingernails are broken and chipped. Except when I'm overcome with a strong feeling of feminity or a special event, I gave up polish a few years ago.
I tried Lee Press On Nails once. Their commercials convinced me that even Lefty Jordan down at the local garage could put on these fake nails and look like the Empress of China. It took a whole afternoon to put them on. It was a special occasion, we were having company for dinner and I wanted to look elegant.

The right thumbnail fell off as I buttered my roll. It looked like a blob of red blood splashed against the white tablecloth. Then the right index fingernail came off when I lifted my coffee cup. Finally, the left index nail decided to join in. It was a little embarrassing. The guests pretended not to notice but how could you not notice three blood-red fingernails lying on a table?

Sometimes I’m tempted to have my nails professionally done but then I think my fingernails are small items on a body that could use a beat deal of beautifying in other places.

Back in another lifetime I owned a $35 genuine human hair wiglet that I perched on top of my head sometimes. I never owned a wig. But I borrowed one once and spent the evening terrified someone would pull it off. I kept remembering sixth grade and how Bubby Lodinoff and Dick Brown tossed my purse back and forth during recess. What if two drunks got hold of my wig? Besides that, my head felt like it was wrapped in an ace bandage.

There was also a time when I fell into the fake eyelash fad. Every day I’d get up and glue on the eyelashes. By midmorning the edges would boing free and bob in the wind.

When you really think about it, it’s really strange, putting on all this fake stuff. Isn’t it odd to wear fake hair over perfectly good real hair, or to cover up real fingernails and eyelashes with plastic versions? Besides, all these things are a trap. I mean, how can you have stubby fingernails one day and the next day show up with 3-inch red ones with diamonds in the middle? How can you have long, thick, luscious hair one day and the next day be seen with your real, limp, patchy pathetic hair?

It’s like the summer I was 12 and "borrowed" one of Mom’s bras and stuffed it so full of Kleenexes I looked like Dolly Parton. Before that memorable day I was just one of the guys, climbing trees and wading in Cow Creek. But after the Kleenexes I suddenly was noticed by every male in our neck of the woods, trying to figure out why they hadn’t noticed my “blossoming” before. I stuffed that bra for the next week.

Going back to Fanny Flat Chest wasn’t easy, but I knew I couldn’t keep stuffing Kleenexes. It might be years before I grew chesty enough to stop. Besides, the Kleenex wads kept working their way out and falling down inside my shirt, leaving me lopsided up top and with a lump on my belly. So I sneaked the bra back into the drawer and, wow!, it felt good to be free of it!

After the snickering died down it was great being back to myself and knowing I could throw a knife and string a bow and build a tree fort as well as anyone else. I wasn’t ready to be a Dolly Parton yet.