Nails

Today as I drove into the office, I noticed my fingernails were long.  And by “long” I mean “a little bit of that white part showing.”  I was overcome with an intense desire to swing the car around in a violent U-Turn.  My immediate death would have been worth it.  Instead, I simply gnawed on them like a hamster going after a delicious food pellet.

Maybe I’m not making myself clear.  I dislike long fingernails.

This is not an OCD weirdness shared by Elijah.  He prefers to slink around our house, Bela Lugosi style.  His nails are crazy long.  Some days I think they look like that Shrindhar Chillal guy from Guinness Book of World Records.  By the way, if you are the kind of person who would get in a car accident over fingernails, do not Google “Shrindhar Chillal.”

Anyhoo, Eli refuses to let us clip his nails.  At the very mention of it he runs screaming from the room.  I have to literally hold him down to get a clipper on him.  He kicks, he cries, he jerks his hand out of my grasp over and over. 

A week or so ago, I was sitting on his chest and administering a clipping when he jerked his hand out of my grasp.  I angrily snatched his finger and proceeded to clip the end of it off.  Which I’ll use as my Father Of The Year submission.  Blood.  Screams. 

Eli pointed the bloody stump at me and shouted, “You did that on purpose!”

“I’m so sorry.  It was an accident.  I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said.  Wait.  Did I?    After a quick self-exam I confirmed I did not do it on purpose.   

I begged him for forgiveness and he forgave me after I said he could play on the Kindle after lights out.

But here’s the thing.  He still had four long fingernails.  And that just cannot exist in the world.  If I was ever going to sleep again, I had to get at them. 

Luca looked on in honest curiosity as I wrestled Eli to the ground and muttered “Father of the Year” over and over.