Friday Open Thread

by Bobby Finger

I looked at my hand this morning while gripping a pole on the E train and noticed that my fingernails were dirty. One nail had a complex, layered design of multicolored grime that reminded me of the sand art I made in elementary school. I was embarrassed and adjusted my grip so that the no one, including myself, would be exposed to the horrors resting in front of my nail bed.

Because I have four or five nail clippers to my name, there’s no reason for this to have happened. There’s one in my desk drawer. A second in a toiletry kit that somehow makes it through every TSA check. A third in the medicine cabinet. I even found one in my bookshelf last week. But there I was, embarrassed by the length of my fingernails and their impossibly strong, almost magnetic attraction to dirt, wondering why my fingernails were as filthy as they were, despite the fact that I work on a computer, don’t dig trenches, and have no interest in gardening. Where does the dirt even come from? The remote control? My phone? The keyboard? Does it float? Am I breathing it in? Do my lungs look like my fingernails?

Earlier this week I read that biting nails may be instinctual — a kind of “evolutionary hangover” from the time before humans made tools. The same article even said it exposes us to bacteria that can help boost our immune system. That’s a nice theory, but the act of biting one’s nails has always confounded me. I tried it once, you know — to fit in, and couldn’t even make a dent, so I decided to ignore my alleged instincts and stick with clippers. A lot of good that did.

So here I am, hours later, typing my last post as Guest Editor…and my fingernails are dirty. What I’m trying to say is, thanks for letting me invade your space and write about dirty fingernails on a Friday afternoon. You have to admit, this is pretty weird of me.