Nail Fail

This story reminded me of something that happened to me when I was in my early teens, somewhere around 1978.

In my family, whenever our fingernails needed trimming, we’d always use a pair of nail scissors (if you’ve never seen these, they’re a set of small scissors especially made for cutting nails). Since I was right-handed, I could trim the nails on my left hand with no problem, but I always needed my mum to help me with the nails on my right hand.

I was walking home from school one day with my best friend, and we had this conversation:

Me: “I don’t know what I’m going to do about cutting my nails when I’m living in my own place. I guess I’ll have to visit home and ask Mum to do it for me!” *Laughs.*

Friend: *Looks at me strangely.* “What’s so hard about using nail clippers?”

Me: *Clueless.* “Using what?”

Friend: “Nail clippers. You know.”

Me: “No, I don’t. What are those?”

She refused to believe that I’d never heard of them and accused me of playing a not-very-funny prank on her. That was fair, because I often DID play not-very-funny pranks at that age, but that wasn’t one of those times. I genuinely didn’t know nail clippers existed. I bought a set that same day and never looked back.

In hindsight, I have no idea why my family didn’t own any. We were immigrants from England who’d been living in Canada for years – and nail clippers were invented in the 19th century!