15-November-2000
Alexander Chiang <achiang@nyx.net>

"No Man's Land"

So I go to the store the other day to buy groceries. I realize
that I can't find my nail clipper so I head over to No Man's Land
(cosmetics and such) and bashfully, start perusing the items for
sale. A friendly manager takes pity on me, wanders over and asks
if he can help me with anything. A desperate look in my eye and
some incoherent mumbling informs him of the product for which I
am searching. He gently guides me out of the Twilight Zone and
shows me a whole bunch of personal hygiene products.

I grab at the first package I see and thankfully, it contains a
nail clipper. Gratefully, I thank him and stumble dazedly towards
the checkout lines.

So when I get home, I look at my hard-won prize. To my surprise,
the package contains not only a nail clipper, but some sandpaper
on a popsicle stick and this menacing looking wooden dowel with a
sharp point on one end and cut at an angle on the other end.

What the fuck is this shit, I wondered out loud.

So I turn over the package and look for descriptions of these
strange contraptions. Apparently the sandpaper on a popsicle
stick (approx 20 grit on one side and maybe 30 grit on the other)
is called an "emery board" and you are supposed to use it to make
your finger nails round.

The scary looking sharp stick is a "cuticle pusher". Apparently,
one is supposed to soak his or her hands in warm soapy water to
"soften the cuticles" and then proceed to jab themselves with
this stick, in an attempt to "push the cuticles back". This
procedure is illustrated with crude line drawings of a pair of
dismembered hands pushing at each others' cuticles.

So I sit and ponder, staring at these two bizarre items.
Maddeningly, they remain just as slient, mocking me in their
refusal to utter noise. The situation grows desperate until I can
take no more. I beg and cry and whimper and plead for
forgiveness. Silence. The mockery continues, unabated. Finally,
in abject humiliation, I make a mad twitching dash to the sink
and grab the bottle of detergent, slam shut the drain in the
sink, and open the faucet in a fit of insane violence. A gushing
rushing torrent of water that rivals the river Heracles diverted
to clean the Augean stables in a day comes screaming out,
tumbling over itself.

Breath abated, I timidly check the water to make sure it is
indeed "warm" without being "hot" or merely "lukewarm". A sigh of
relief as its warmth is confirmed. A squirt of detergent and I
frantically start mixing, all the while looking back over my
shoulder at my captors in their grinning all-knowing silence. 

I can take it no longer. My hands plunge into the warm soapy mix
and I soak them in accordance to the Law on the back of the
package. Enough! The "cuticle pusher" is retrieved with 
trembling hands. 

Slowly at first, and gradually increasing in intensity, my hands
resemble the illustrative dismembered ones as they jab at each
other in their mad attempts to push thosed damnable cuticles back
back back into oblivion. The whole time - a menacing silence from
the fearsome pusher.

The deed is done. Weak with relief, I stagger against the wall,
jelly in my knees. Spent, I reach up behind my head to dry my
hands on the towel hanging just so because it is "recommended"
that my hands be dry for the "emery board". I stop and appraise
the situation. Are they dry enough, I wonder fearfully. A few
extra rubs in an unused spot to place my broken mind at ease.

The "emery board". We face off, me with a grim front even as the
jellyfish that has replaced my stomach twitches in the knowledge
that my visage is but a cheap hollow shell, hiding the terror
within. The "emery board" leers at me, knowing and confident of
the outcome. We both know the victor before the game is even
played. And yet, I attempt to go down fighting to save a modicum
of self-dignity. 

No use. As I gently trace the outline of each fingernail to round
them out, tears fall from my face. I am defeated.

The aftermath. A few days later, nails rounded and cuticles gone,
I stare at my hands in wonder. So clean! So perfectly shaped!
Such splendor as I have never experienced before. The trauma has
abated, the coppery adrenaline taste in my mouth gone. I have
looked and stared the beast straight in its hellfire mouth, and I
have survived.

fin.