Have you ever found an old scabby band-aid?

Well I swear this is worse. I am a magnet to toe-nail/finger-nail clippings. So gross. It's never a fun experience. To help you understand, I want to share a few memories with you. If you have a weak stomach, prepare yourself...but keep reading. As gross as these stories are, I can now look back and laugh at them....kind of.

#1- The Tack

My Sophmore year of college, I lived in a house with a few of my friends. Loved it. At the end of the semester one of the girls moved out and another one moved in. Between moves, I went up to vacuum the room so it would be all clean for our new roommate. I was bare foot and wasn't paying that much attention to where I was stepping until I felt this sharp object go into my heel. Ouch! I was sure it was a tack coming up through the carpet. I sat down to get a better look and to my unpleasant surprise, there it was-a long fingernail clipping stuck in my heel.

#2-The Lap Pool

A couple years ago I was teaching Triathlon Training at the U of U. Having never done one, I decided to train for one during the same semester. How could I teach it if I had never done one? I know-I asked my director the same question. She told me that you don't have to be good at something to be good at teaching someone to do something....or something like that. ? Anyway, I took that philosophy and went with it. The cycling I could do with them, but the swimming I did on my own time because I had to be out of the pool to help the participants. I went to the lap pool at Golds Gym to begin my training. My friend told me she hated lap pools because they tended to be really dirty. I disregarded this statement because I had never had such an experience that would make me think otherwise. AND I thought she was over-reacting. My cap and goggles were in place and I was off. Goggles can be a blessing or a curse. I was just beginning my workout and was only a couple feet from completing my first lap when I noticed all these small particles in the water. It made me a little uncomfortable, but nothing compared to what I saw next. There, floating in the water, was a soggy, grainy, old lady toe-nail. It was long and disgusting. I felt the gag reflex coming on and quickly decided to just scoop the toe-nail up in my hands and drop it on the side of the pool as to not take a chance in touching it by swatting it out of the water. Why did I try to do that!? I should've just gotten out of the pool, but it was too late. I was carefully holding my hands together, cupping the water that had the toe-nail floating in it. I separated my hands letting the water just drop onto the side of the pool. I looked for the toe-nail to be sure that the job had been done and it was no where to be found. I looked at my hand and sure enough-it was stuck to my palm. I was trying to keep my yells of disgust down to an acceptable level, but just couldn't. Puke. I've since learned a better technique of getting undesirable things out of pools.

#3- The Baseboards

There isn't much of a story to this. I was moving into a new room in my house this week. The room was an electric purple, and frankly, I'm just not a purple room kind of gal. I decided to paint. The paint color of choice: Contemplation. That's the name of it. Good luck trying to picture it. It's kind of a light steely tealy color. (not that that description is better than contemplation, but hey, I tried.) Anyway, I was doing a serious cleaning job of the baseboards before I painted and found this huge toe-nail clipping tucked up against it on the carpet. I've had enough. I'm done finding people's little remains. It's called a garbage can people. Not too hard.

If you are one of these people that leaves your clippings around, please think back on these stories and the trauma they have caused on my mental, physical, and emotional well-being. Think twice before you let your clippings fall. ;)