I had a few minutes today of sitting around waiting, and you know how you get a little fidgety when you’re waiting for something, and you start messing with your fingernails or your cuticles or something? Well, I do anyway.  So I’m there sitting and fidgeting and I look down at my nails and Reader, I was horrified!  There was a tiny line of dirt there under my index finger nail.  I shudder just to think of it now.

I cannot stand a dirty fingernail! CANNOT STAND IT. I am a clean person, and I generally keep my fingernails trimmed and neat and clean.  This is basic hygeine. It is not something I have to spend much time on, it is just something that tends to happen with regular hand-washing and other maintenance.  Therefore, when I occasionally see that I have failed in keeping the clean hands I normally require, I correct the problem immediately.  Well, first I shudder and cringe for a second, then I correct the problem.

I do not understand it when people let their fingernails get all skanky.  You’ve seen what I’m talking about, surely: nails grown out  a little too far, shapeless and possibly splitting, with dirt all jammed up underneath them.  If I notice this on a person it makes me feel anxious and uncomfortable.  It is especially bad on people working jobs where they have to hand you things: bank tellers, waiters, clerks, baristas, and so on.  If you are working a job where you have to hand things to people, especially food for the love of dog, keep your damned hands clean!  Am I wrong?

In fact, you there, at the computer! You with the hands! Please check the cleanliness of your fingernails right now.  Do you have any dirt? You can go wash up; it’s okay; I’ll wait.  The thought of dirty nails just on the other side of this computer screen is really squicking me out.  There, I said it.