A trip to the salon for a manicure/pedicure led me down this road, reflecting on the dialog that ensued regarding the less-than-stellar condition of my cuticles:
So I happen to pick. Relentlessly. I pick and pull at the skin surrounding my fingernails (but only on my thumb and middle finger, a very important distinction you see) until they resemble a couple of raw and bloody miniature hams. Sometimes it hurts to do this, despite the temporary relief from minor anxiety that it provides. It is low-level orgiastic self-mutilation of a very public and embarrassing kind.
People always assume I am a biter. “Oh, no!” I say, gravely, as if biters are somehow more depraved and deserving of shunning than us, the pickers. “I don’t bite my nails,” I emphasize dismissively when asked, while thinking to myself, “I merely pick the skin clean off my fingers, stripping them savagely and absentmindedly like a drunken co-ed devouring a midwinter chicken-wing on 10-cent wing night, and it’s her last 10 cents,” but, hey, I’m no biter!
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