Is it just me, or...?

It was like a nightmare come true. Walking down the hall of the surgeon's office, my husband leaning on me helplessly after undergoing foot surgery, and then...that sound. All too familiar, all too haunting, instantly taking my mind back to New York subway rides. The most disturbing thing on a New York subway? Not the loud group of politically incorrect tourists, not the crackhead mother begging for seventy-five cents every night, not the smelly drunk peeing in the corner which everyone else noticed and moved away but somehow you missed the warning and are the only person with a close up view of the urine fountain. No, the worst thing is hearing that sound, the click-click sound, then looking up to find your suspicion confirmed, that yes, somebody is indeed clipping their fingernails in public, in front of you. In public. In front of you. The resistance of the unyielding nail, as they squeeze harder to remove it, feels like your very heart is being compressed. Sharp little barbs fly off haphazardly, usually in slow motion, but sometimes so quickly you don't know what happened until you're hit with it, pierced by the unwanted portion of human fingertip--a complete stranger's fingertip. And then you focus in on the floor. Down there, in the midst of briefcases and shoes and, Lord Have Mercy, grocery bags, is a pile of dirty yellow fingernails, once used for scratching and fine manipulation, now gathered like infected needles, lying in wait to catch unawares innocent dependents of public transportation. [shudder] As we walked out of the surgeon's office yesterday, I recognized that sound, looked up in response and saw a nurse clipping an old man's toenails. [chills, the bad kind] I want to be a nurse someday, but I would rather watch a scalpel remove an old man's prostate than witness or participate in the clipping of his toenails. Actually, I have witnessed the removal of an old man's prostate, back when I worked in the urology department of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, answering phones for a young Persian surgeon. I'll take a prostatectomy over a toenail-ectomy any day. Well, I don't have a prostate, so I would never take a prostatectomy, but I would observe one again. I'd rather smell the burning flesh and view the guts. I don't know, I guess I'm weird like that. And I realize the irony of this public clipping pet-peeve, because I have been a nail-biter most of my life, not the most beautiful of habits. Some things are better done behind closed doors: peeing, smoking crack, clipping your nails. Right? In any case, Joel's foot is healing as he keeps it elevated and pops his painkillers. I get to play nurse for the week, and on Friday I have a meeting with a real nurse at a local college to discuss a plan of study so I can become a real one too. That would be a dream come true.