She Nailed It

Story Submitted by Roger:

I found Marie online.  She had photos of herself posted that showed off her nails, which were very long.  Apparently, she was very proud of them and spent a lot of time polishing and painting them.  She was a teacher and part-time administrator for a charity.

In person, I found that the photos hardly did her nails justice.  She had the longest ones I had ever seen.  Each was two different colors, with a diagonal slash separating one color from the other.  They were each easily over two inches.

"I've been growing them out for a while," she said proudly.

When we sat down, I joked that her nails were like having "built-in chopsticks."

She said, "You have no idea.  Watch."

She picked up her fork, set two of her nails in between a set of tines (eww), and slid her knife in between another set.  Then, she picked up my fork and, smiling the whole time, slid it between the last set of fork tines on the original fork.

She balanced it there for a solid second before one of her two nails broke, and the other one cracked, sending the silverware – and nail – to the table.

She tensed up and made a face that looked like it was about to burst into laughter.  I took it as a cue that I should laugh about it, too, so I did.

She didn't start laughing, though.  She started to cry.

That killed the date.  Despite my best efforts to put her in a better mood, she was miserable for the rest of dinner.

When I asked her if she wanted to do something afterward, she said that she wanted to go home.  I told her that I wouldn't mind seeing her again, but she apparently associated me with the loss of her nails, because I never heard from her again.