Her Nails Untrimmed Her Senior Year

Back when I was in high school there was this one chick who was two years ahead of me. Her name was Diane. She looked a lot like Natalie Portman, dark hair, beautiful smooth hands on the largeish side. Not real large hands, but on the larger side. And the thing was, her nails! This gal used to let her fingernails grow out extremely long. I especially remember her senior year, when she let her nails grow out all year long without trimming them.

Or rather, she must've let her nails grow out uncut starting about the beginning of October. By the time it registered on me that Diane was going for a record, it was the beginning of March, and she had her fingernails all grown out five-eighths of an inch long. Except for her right thumbnail, which was trimmed off short, she must've broken it. I remember Diane digging her long fingernails into this guy's forearm one time. That was when it dawned on me, she was trying to grow her fingernails as long as she could.

And around that same time, I remember seeing Diane in typing class, trying to type on an old manual typewriter with her long Mandarin fingernails. It wasn't easy for her, her nails were too long by this time for her to use a keyboard very well.

Diane never used nail polish, she just let those nails grow out long and white. She let her fingernails grow out the rest of the school year; her nails were an inch long by the time she graduated.

And then after she graduated, Diane kept letting her nails grow out all summer. Diane was working at a drive-in that summer -- this was back when some fast food joints were still just drive-ins, you ate in your car. And I used to go up to that drive-in and order a hamburger or whatever, just to get a look at Diane's ultra long fingernails. By the end of August, Diane had her fingernails grown out one and three-eighths inches long. Except for her right thumbnail, which was three-quarters of an inch long.

I just loved watching Diane fumble with those long clawlike fingernails, trying to get change out of the cash register. Because her fingernails, well over an inch long, were longer than the cash register drawer was deep, so when she tried to make change, she couldn't even get her fingers into the cash register. Her long fingernails were too long for her to get coins out of the cash register drawer without endless awkward scratching and fumbling around. I just loved it!

Then at the end of the summer, when Diane was about to leave for college, I ran into her at the public library, and she had finally trimmed most of her fingernails. Her left thumbnail was still a full one and three-eighths inches long. And the nail on her left forefinger was three-eighths of an inch long. The rest of the nails on her left hand, and her right thumbnail, were shorter but still long, no more than a quarter of an inch. And the rest of the nails on her right hand were trimmed off nearly short.

The next year, there was another chick, blonde Vicki, who let her fingernails grow out untrimmed her entire senior year. By the time she graduated, her fingernails were over an inch long, though some of them had broken and been trimmed off shorter. And since then I've noticed several other gals who, it seemed, were letting their fingernails grow out uncut their entire senior year. Has anyone else ever noticed this custom?