Part of a weekly look into the adventures of Lisa Chin
Do you suffer from the daily stress of being a woman… no, wait… a woman with nails?
Does the frustration pummel you down, day after goddamned day?
Do any of these descriptions sound like you:
- You don’t have time for a salon. You are not one of these television wives that fill their free time with shopping and champagne, absentee husbands and being rich. Nope, you are WAY too busy for that. You only get the short satisfaction of leering lustfully into glass parlour windows as you grab that lunch you so enjoy eating at your work desk.
- You are an incessant nail biter. Whenever they’re naked, unpolished and unprotected by toxic chemicals, you have this unstoppable need to grind them down to furry harmless nubs.
- You lose sleep each night from the constant inner turmoil swirling inside your soul because you simply cannot choose between the comfort of light clean shellac free appendages vs. the look of artfully dressed index accents. I mean ladies, we’re talking boat shoes vs. stilettos here, are we not?
And when you do manage to get some polish on those manacles of yours, do you:
- Have this compulsion to start thinking thoughts like, “Now would be a great time to use a steel brush and finally get that grime off the pots… Gee, I think my nails are dry.”
- You incessantly pick all of the polish off every nail the second the first one starts to chip, leaving you with a hand that looks like it emerged from a foggy pond in a B-rated horror movie?
- You are bored of having a normal looking hand and crave the attention total strangers give when they see something odd. You secretly want to be one of the People of Walmart.
Maybe you are not this neurotic. Maybe you are. But if you fall into the latter, I have the solution for you!
It’s called “Paint A Few Nails at Random.”
Okay. So maybe it’s not a hot new trend. But hey, I’ve been doing it for six months so if you were to collect all of your research data solely from me, you would definitely see a steep uptick on the chart.
Here is what you have to do:
- Find a place where you don’t have to worry about the odors of the polish escaping your personal space. (Do NOT be like that guy at work who reheats fish in the office microwave.)
- Pick out a color, or two, or three. I have been toying lately with the Sally Hansen Salon Effects because they have cool patterns and dry instantly.
- Choose a few fingers at random. I would suggest no more one or two per hand. The more crazy you want to appear, the less symmetrical you should paint. People don’t like asymmetrical things – It makes them dream of anarchy.
And speaking of dreamy, check out all of these benefits:
- It doesn’t take long, you could basically replace your terrible habit of reading self-esteem reducing fashion magazines on the bowl with… painting a nail!
- Having a few nails painted should be enough to stop you from biting your nails, because your brain is confused about which ones will give you cancer.
- You can have the luxury of focusing on your fully coiffed digit and then focus your attention on how comfortable the other nails are. Us women are masters of changing subjects anyway.
- Go for those grimy pots. You now have the option of several worry free nails to use for the menial tasks that randomly pop into your head.
- STAND OUT! Wear your oddity with confidence and people will want to copy. Don’t believe me? Go to any rooftop in Williamsburg and watch as hipsters suddenly surround you as they secretly formulate how they will claim their own fame to this hot new trend when you’re not around.
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Lisa Chin is a Senior Interactive Director at SNAP Interactive and the newest columnist for Wika Magazine. You can check out Lisa’s online portfolio here.
