Thumbnails

Dear Mom,

I just trimmed my thumbnails. For some reason I can’t stand for my thumbnails to be long—not even a little. I try, but then I get annoyed and off they come with the nail clippers.

Could this have been from when I was a child?

I had a boil on the inner, upper most part of my thigh. Every morning before school I’d stand in front of you while you sat in the kitchen chair and you’d take your two thumbnails and give the boil a squeeze. You had thumbnails that could be used as screwdrivers. I dreaded waking up seeing the boil puffed up knowing you’d be squeezing the bloody life out of it.

No doubt I had whined and begged for you to not squeeze it. I’d squirm, “That hurts!”

“Oh hush, I have to.” All the while your steel thumbnails are gouging in my skin on either side of the boil, oozing the puss out.

I hate boils and I’m not too fond of long hard thumbnails either.