Fingernails: An Unfortunate Tale (or two)

My mom was always the lady that cooked the big yummy meals at church.  Once when I was little the youth were having a special speaker come and the youth pastor asked my mom to cook up something wonderful.  When the speaker got there everyone was talking up my mom's cooking and how great it was (like they always do) and as she put the finishing touches on and the dinner prayer was said she noticed something unfortunate. Very unfortunate.  One of her long pink fingernails was broken off.  She had no idea where it was.  At this point it was too late to start over so she called the youth pastor over and told him what had happened.  And he was forced to do the unthinkable.  He ran the bell (remember the bell for everyone that went to 12cbc?) and announced that a fingernail had been lost in the making of dinner that night and that it might be lurking in someone's dinner.  And who do you think found a bright pink fingernail?  Yep, the guest speaker.  Fortunately he had been around youth a lot and just dug it out, announced to the crowd he was the lucky winner, and kept eating. 
Well, last week I had an unfortunate tell of my own.  I, too, lost a fingernail.  I lost a fingernail in the making of pickles.  I had cut and was chilling about THIRTY, fresh from the garden, almost organic cucumbers.  I sat down to relax, got busy cleaning like a good little wife attended to my screaming child and noticed it soon after.  I thought about just making them anyways.  But I just couldn't.  I was forced to throw away 30 cucumbers and start over.  Thankfully I was able to pick enough for 6 quart jars of pickles in one day.  Read 'em and weap, Vlasic.  There's a new pickle in town.  Some have deemed them the best pickle they've ever had.

Moral of the story- long fingernails are for suckers.  Or the very least, people who don't cook. Or Perkins women.  Or women whose brains go faster than their hands.