Manicure Nightmare

I am trying to learn classical guitar so I grew my nails long so that I can finger pick the strings. My nails are thin; that is my problem. The thickness of the nails affect the sound (or is it the tone) of the strings played. If the nail is thin, the sound produced is…hmmm...thin, metallic like, and nylon classical guitars are not supposed to sound like steel stringed guitars; although there are pieces for classical guitars that need that steel like sound (or is it tone), still, I don’t want my playing (which is not that good) to sound like I’m playing a ukulele (I have nothing against the ukulele; I play the ukulele too).

I saw my wife having her nails done. I looked at my nails and it looked like the nails of a grave digger. There’s black matter inside it, although I clean it all the time with toothpicks, but the ever present dust and soil and all that matters that creeps under one’s nails keep getting under my nails. So, I thought why not have it manicured. After my wife’s nails were done, I had my nails done too. I am not a manicure or pedicure guy. God has gifted me with nails that do not grow inward. My nails behave nicely, no problem with them. I thought of having that manicure because I want my nails shaped and then applied with natural colored nail polish to thicken them. That’s the reason. Now, I didn’t know that (or somehow I knew it but I thought that manicurists don’t do it with guys) manicure is not just all about cutting nails and polishing, I mean, the way I see it, manicure is, from what I experienced, a surgical operation. The manicurist looked at my hand, put a towel under it, scrubbed it with some pink colored liquid, then she got out this scalpel like thing and started ablating my nails, then she took out an instrument that looks like a miniature scissor and started cutting around my nails (it was painful but I’m a big boy so I didn’t even wince) removing I don’t know what, then she started cutting my calluses. I was thinking, “In the name of Odin that’s my guitar calluses!” But I didn’t complain, the calluses are, aesthetically speaking, ugly so removing a few layer will not be bad. After these procedures were done, she scrubbed my hands again. I looked at my nails and I am surprised because they looked the nails of an educated man—clean and shiny and without calluses.

The thing is, a day after the “operation” the edges of my nails especially my thumb felt tender—they were infected. Although they healed a few days after, I can’t still use my thumb efficiently in playing the guitar finger style.

I haven’t played the classical guitar for almost five days now. I’m back to using pick and playing power chords. (Power chords are chords used by rock guitarists. It uses only two notes, the root and the fifth—no minor and no major. When played using a pick it sounds like this: chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug…good for people with broken eardrums… chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug, chug…)

I am passed playing guitar that way.

Anyways, I told my wife that I’m not having my nails done again. My wife looked at me and said, “Tell that to the manicurist.” Ouuuch…I don’t know which is more painful.