The Fingernail

My new house is fourteen years old.  In spite of the fact that the original owner built this home with the greatest attention to detail and using superior products, fourteen year-old things wear out.  Take our refrigerator, for instance.

I am ignorant of most brand names when it comes to home building but I have heard of Sub-Zero, so when I noticed our home came equipped with one, I appropriately oohed and aahed.  Rightfully so.  It is a nice fridge.  A really, really nice fridge.

I know this because several weeks ago, I noticed our food wasn't as cold as it should have been.  I sat on it until Jay started gagging on his milk and declaring ourselves in danger of food poisoning.  With Salmonella on my brain, I called for help.

A friendly, professional repairman came out and informed me that our freon was leaking out.  Because a remodel is in our future, albeit not in any immediate one, I considered simply replacing the current refrigerator with a newer model instead of spending money to fix the old one.  My consideration ended approximately four seconds later when he estimated the cost of replacement at about eight thousand dollars.

Fix it we did and the repairman was so quick and easy going that he talked me in to fixing the waterline so that the ice maker and water dispenser were operational (we have been getting our water and ice the old fashioned way.  Using ice trays and water from the tap.  It's like we're pioneers!).

Unfortunately, he didn't have the parts on hand to do the water line repair so another service call was necessary.  Instead of the same easy going and friendly repairman showing up, a much older and crankier version showed up wearing the now familiar white and red striped shirt.  I noticed two things right away:  he was a talker and he had the longest fingernail I've ever seen on a man.

I don't know about you, but when somebody comes to do work around the house, and this goes for any house I've ever lived in, I don't like to be around.  I find I am most comfortable if I am close enough to hear them announce when they have finished or answer any question they might have about my complaint, but out of line of sight.   Friendly, easy-going repairman of two weeks ago had no problem with that.  He worked on fixing the refrigerator for a couple of hours while I stayed in my room on the computer.  We both had our privacy as it should be.  Not so today.  As soon as I would retreat, he'd come find me to tell me about the next thing he was going to do.  Eventually, I gave in to his needy ways (I don't know why he needed me to say, "Is that right?" "Huh" or "O.K", but he did) and folded laundry in the living room.  It was a very uncomfortable two hours because, in my opinion, laundry is kind of a private affair.

Because I had that undesirable line of sight the entire time, I couldn't help but look at the fingernail.   The nails on his left hand appeared to all be a normal length, but on his right, both his thumb and his pinky extended well beyond what they should.  Think fake acrylic length but in a putrid shade of yellow. Reasoning that there must be a good reason for someone to choose to have a horrid looking nail on their working hand (disease, extreme phobia of nail clippers, hormone imbalance that causes it to grow at supersonic speeds), I kept from making judgement.   Or at least I tried.  And like all situations where I find myself face to face with someone's less-than-perfect body part, I kept eye-contact the entire time and pretended I was happily unaware of his claw..er...nail.

Two hours of faking interest in the plumbing of my refrigerator without any noticeable interest in his fingernail later, however, and I learned that my pretend good manners were in vain.  As he cleaned up his mess and attempted to open my garbage can, I showed him the foot pedal that opened the lid.

He replied, "No need for that.  That's why I keep this fingernail long.  You never know when you'll need it in my line of work," and proceeded to jimmy open the lid with his long, yellow hook.

All I could say was, "Is that right?"