Hard as nails….
I have found that that statement, when applied to fingernails (or mine, anyway) is untrue. My fingernails are not hard, if their frequent breakage is any indication. I am rarely able to maintain long, elegant nails because my poor stubby nails never get a chance to grow and flourish.
I blame the little people.
I’m thinking about nails because last night I finally polished my nails after a looong absence of TLC. I had plans to go out last night, something I also looked forward to after a looong absence.
I wasn’t a frequent flier to nail salons prior to having kids, but I enjoyed the occasional manicure. Once I had kids, though, I rarely bothered, except for special occasions. Why?
Because experience has proven that nail polish, through expertly applied and preserved upon nails, will be nicked and/or peeled within 2.3 hours of contact with home and/or children.
Trust me. I know this.
Getting out of a nail salon intact can be tricky enough for me. I’m impatient. I despise the waiting-under-dryer time. I want to go-go-go, so after a brief period, I go.
And do my best to perform the daunting extract-keys-from-bag task, which can often result in disaster.
Even if I make it home, however, my poor nails never stand a chance. They are soaked in baby-wipe juice. They are used to scratch scum off a toddler’s chin. They are submerged in dish soap as they scrub a never-ending stack of plates and cups so grimy that they require washing BEFORE they even make it into the dishwasher to be washed.
So a fresh, costly polish job dissolves into something like this:
Ladies & gentlemen… the Mamicure.
And it’s just unsightly to walk around with nails like this, roughly the equivalent of walking around with your hair matted & unbrushed (oops…) or the backside of your jeans splattered with food remnants because you wipe your hands on your ass while cooking instead of using a dish towels like a decent human being and…
(have I said too much?)
Suffice to say, I don’t typically bother with my nails. Even filing is a process left for days when I have “extra” time, which means on Day NEVER.
I was at the mall recently. You know those kiosks in the middle of the walkways? It’s been awhile since I was at the mall, so maybe I missed the memo on this, but when did they become so predatory??? The guy at one of the booths was apparently selling some kind of nail product. I know this not because I bothered to look- I didn’t. And not because I stopped to examine his product when he started talking to me- I didn’t. I know this because the guy tried to follow me down the walkway, raving about how great his product would make my nails, and how I HAD to see just how amazing yada-yada-yada.
I kept walking. Pushing my triple stroller, with a quick. “No thanks.” over my shoulder. He followed, and demanded to see my nails.
So I flashed my chipped, broken nails. He paused. (He had an accent, which I totally wish you could hear me do in person. Because I LOVE accents, & I’m really good at them. Chances are, if we’ve met in public but I didn’t know you, then you met the Australian or British me.)
Him: “Ummm. So how often you get your nails done?”
Me: (pointed to triple stroller) “… and there’s three more in school now.”
Him: “Oh. Ooooh. You have… no time, then. Ook. I see. Bye.”
I finally made a commitment to myself recently to try once in awhile to do my nails, for the sake of aesthetics. So last night, I polished them. And they looked great! AND… they lasted, all night!!!!
(Note: It is imperative to mention at this juncture that as I polished my nails, #5 was observing my process. You’ll see why… wait for it…)
So we got up this morning and began our Sunday routine of kids roaming the house while the adults try and pretend that there are not kids roaming the house.
Until The Captain got up to refresh his coffee. And said, “You’re not going to want to face this one.”
Indeed.
(Note: It is also imperative to mention at this juncture that the older girls have a small collection of nail polishes that are kept on a high shelf in their upstairs bathroom, away from little prying hands. Usually. Wait for it…)
The Captain served up a guilty #5, who had taken it upon herself to beautify her fingers and toes with big sis’ polish.
Oh, thank God she chose RED. Pink would have been way too light to show up on the carpet…
Thankfully, the upstairs bathroom was spared the polish carnage. But in her efforts to kindly alert the rest of the family to her self-beautification, she tiptoed through the upstairs and down the steps, leaving a tiny trail of polish, less like Hansel & Gretel’s crumb trail, and more like tiny splatters of blood from a crime scene.
Sigh.
So in my hasty efforts to minimize the damage, I grabbed my trusty can of Resolve as quickly as I could and hit the carpet, burying my nails into the chemical soap as I scrubbed-scrubbed-scrubbed.
The “After” Shot- Pretty proud of it. Did not take “before” pic, because I was too busy losing my will to live.
Once the carpet was triaged, I attacked #5’s feet and hands with a stack of cotton balls and nail polish remover. Her nails were successfully cleaned.
And as for my polish job?
The cotton fluff will save my palms as I clench my fists & howl, ruing the day I decided to buy nail polish.
The carpet & #5’s nails survived; mine did not.
Hard as nails. NOW I get it…
© Copyright 2013 Six Pack Mom, All rights Reserved. Written For: Six Pack Mom