My toenail is hanging by a thread.
"Ah!" you think. "Clever Iris is using SYMBOLISM to illustrate some deep, universal truth about the human experience which will feature largely in her brilliant next novel!"
No, really. My toenail is hanging by a thread. My actual toenail. Which is real, as opposed to my brilliant next novel, which is nothing more than a fanciful idea of mine. And...well, not a real thread. I don't actually know what roots toenails to the nailbed. A combination of skin and nerves and blood vessels, I suppose. In any case, it's not a symbol - my toenail really is just a good, solid rip away from becoming FREE OF MY TOE.
This is upsetting, to say the least. I never realized how fond I was of my toenails, how lovely they are, these proverbial cherries on the proverbial sundaes of my feet. They really are an important part of me; I can paint them different colours, they can peek out of the openings of shoes, and they give me something nice to look at when I look down at my feet. I suppose, in a way, this has been a bonding experience for me and my toenails - taught me to appreciate what I have, and all that bull****. So that's good. But for the love of GOD, please let me keep my toenail! I love it. I love all of them! I love them so much that I could not bear to LIVE without any one of them! 9 out of 10 isn't good enough for me. I want all of my toenails. I want to be able to paint ALL OF THEM, and cherish them, and love them and...and...
Sigh. I guess I should explain how this happened. I was walking along outside and I stubbed my toe. Yeppers. Simple as that. Except I'm not your ordinary girly-girl. I don't just bump my toe lightly into a chair like some namby-pamby little baby. When I stub my toe, I do a GOOD JOB of it. I make sure that that little mother****in' toe is crushed, BEATEN into submission, the blood spurting from delicate, fragile little blood vessels in my feet that chose to learn their lessons the hard way. I make sure that if I'm going to hurt, I may as well shed a few nanograms of weight in toenail while I'm doing it. Also, none of this nonsense about stubbing my toe on wood or linoleum or any of those soft, girly materials. No, I stub my toe on STEEL.
You know those short, circular hosey things for water that the city places into the ground? I don't exactly know what they're called, but they're about two inches in diameter and an inch tall, and - oh right - made of METAL. Well, this one little bugger was buried in the neighbours' unkempt lawn, right on the very edge, hiding in the tall grass like a lion in the savannah. And I was just walking along unsuspectingly when I throw my foot into that thing as hard as I could considering I wasn't running. Hurt like a f****** mother******* f****, I'll tell you. And now, a week later, I am in danger of losing my toenail.
See, these things don't happen to regular people. Other people manage to keep all their toenails - more than that, their nails are always painted in delightful, whimsical colours like Seafoam Green or Hallows' Eve Orange. But nooooooooo, not for me! I have to trip over my own feet and accidentally slap my own face and write reminders on my hand that end up on my forehead after I spend the night sleeping with my head in my palm. I have walk into cabinet doors, leaving bruises the length of my THUMB on my forehead (my forehead has taken quite a bashing over the years). When I get a pimple, it's not just a cute little red spot. It conspires with all the other pimples on my face to form a giant, green, pulsating pancake on my face, until I literally cannot move my cheek. Literally. And when I stub my toe, I stub it goooood, baby. My life is a f***ing hilarious, 24/7, live-action comedy.
Yet I don't have enough material to write a simple, little, freaking book. What's wrong with this picture?
Yours forever,
Iris
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