There is nothing more unsettling than being in the middle of pulling on a pair of tights, only to realise that you have a chipped fingernail! It’s a precarious moment with several options, and it could cost you £10 if you don’t choose well, depending on the quality of your hosiery.
Something a male reader may not know is that a good pair of shaping tights are so strong that pulling them up is similar to trying to get a whole marrow into one finger of a glove; it’s an exercise in brute strength and determination verging on desperation and risking dislocation.
I had such a dilemma today.
I’m halfway into my tights, I have a slightly compromised arm so getting dressed is not easy anyway, and red alert, sound of warning klaxon, I have a dangerously broken nail! Freeze! Do nothing! One false move and you could wreck a tenner! What to do?
The choices are an honourable, one-handed retreat, or a hyper-cautious grapple to get the things up where tights should be. The problem with option two is that tights are sneaky. You can just catch them and they will appear to be fine, all glossy and innocent. So you keep going, finish getting dressed, get to work, and as you sit down at your desk a ladder shoots up from toe to top.
You can feel a ladder. they’re irritating, and of course your tights are black, your legs abuse the right to be pale, and you either spend the rest of the day sitting stubbornly at your desk, or walking around like a constipated duck trying to hide your embarrassment!
Should you finally be forced to visit the ladies room to powder your nose, which is all we do in there honest, you can guarantee that one false move and the ladder will double in size and split off in four directions. My mother once had such a situation and she had the very real discomfort of half her derriere on the loose all day. I couldn’t stop laughing when she got home and told me…sorry mum!
So there I am today, frozen in place, trying to work out if I can wield a nail file with my teeth, when I’m joined by my little Lily cat, who is now intrigued, and has claws, and has found a new toy! There are so many ways that’s terrifying. Including a sharp claw in a toe! Unbelievably painful.
Gingerly I reach for my nail file, then realise that I will also need clippers, which are fortunately handy. So far so good. I start to clip the nail, Lily is intrigued, now I’m frozen with a cat’s nose terrifyingly close to the gap in the clippers. I wait her out. You do not shout at a cat as they have sharp claws and four feet that whirl like a helicopter and go out in 8 different directions at the same time, much like a demented windmill.
She moves. I resume breathing. If I can just get the nail trimmed…out comes a paw, then a claw which goes in between the sharp edges of the clippers. I stop breathing again. She looks at me and gives an experimental tug. I drop the clippers which go under the bed. Lily sees an opportunity and settles next to me in full on adorable mode. I can’t reach the clippers, I’m reasonably sure I’m now sitting on a crystal nail file that could shatter and lacerate my butt without warning, Lily is asleep purring, and I have cramp and frozen knees.
Tony phones, he’s on his way home, and wants to know what’s for tea. He will be lucky if it’s not something that can be inserted into the foot of a pair of tights and boiled in pan. Waste not want not, I’m all about repurposing stuff rather than throwing it away. German sausage in tight-foot with a Camembert crumble? Except I have no sausage, no Camembert, my feet are still in my tights, and I’m a terrible cook.
Fortunately Miss Lily has a sudden attack of the nibbles, elevates herself in one smooth movement and heads for her food bowl like greased lightening on a skateboard, and I am able to retrieve my clippers without spifflicating something, trim and file the nail, fight my way into my tights. Finally I’m free to go and do…whatever it was I was thinking of doing before this saga began.
If I remember what that was I will let you know. Although I’m too relieved that my kitten still has a nose to worry!
Best love
Amorah – Deb
Deb Hawken - Amorah 