Nailbiters Inc.

Ok... I admit... I have a huuuge problem with biting my nails. And I take solace in the fact that I know I am not alone in this. Indeed I found a community called, 'Nailbiters Unanonymous' in Orkut of which I am a proud member of! Well.. I have nooooooooooo idea when this began or why its lasted for most of my 24 years.. i just know that i dont realise its happening and many people get disgusted by me! And no, I DONT eat my nails... I just bite them off...

I think I picked it up from one of my older cousins and to date I havent forgiven him for it. And I donno if he's gotten rid of it, but I havent. To me, the habit is analogous to someone who is smoking/drinking, only less harmful and all those lectures about 'determination', 'self-control' that I give my nicotine addicted buds gets thrown on my face when they ask me to give up nailbiting! Consequently ofcourse I secretly dislike most women with long, well-manicured perfect nails which they actually find time to paint accordingly and flaunt, while my own poor ones are soo stunted that they dont wanna grow.

I do lose hope on them when I do my hardest and dont bite them for 3-4 days and still see no appreciable change in length. I think my nails are for all practical purposes afraid to grow. They just know that I couldnt have given up the habit and force me to relapse into the phase! If they grow, I'd probably not bite them off... But they just dont give me an incentive to STOP! Only once in my life, just before I started college, back in India, I grew a will of steel and stopped biting them through the entire summer. And they actually grew and just before my first day, i got them manicured and there I was, the proud babe with beautifully shaped natural nails. Indeed it was an experience by itself, learning to pick stuff and handle them and everything without chipping or bending your nails and all. And I was the proud owner for about a year from September, when college started to next September, when we had our III sem final practical exams. For then came Mr.X into the picture. Mr X was our external examiner for our Electrical Machines lab. And he was a killer at the questions. And he chose just one student per batch, the one the professor chose to make bakra, in my case bakri of. I was the 'chosen one'. Having completed my experiment in an hour(the exams last for 3), I was deposited over to Mr X for viva-voce. And then it began. As of then, kaun banega crorepati was big. And Mr X gave me 3 lifelines to answer my viva.
1. I could ask my professor
2. I could ask a friend
3. I could go to the library and refer a book
I heard all this in disbelief, positive that this was his idea of a joke. But as it happened, it wasn't! When I got stuck in question no 4, he offered for me to use a lifeline.. and one of my lifelines just died when my prof who obviously had no clue about the answer to the question, decided to become self-righteous and yell, saying -"Jayalakshmi, how dare you ask me the answer to a question during an examination?" And so it went... And without knowing what was happening, my fingers flew into my mouth and I didnt know it... I didnt taste the nailpolish... Nothing... 2 hours... 20 questions later, 10 of my fingernails were back where they'd begun a year ago!

Soo tragic! And its not like I got a 100 in the exam either.. I had to be content with a 98! And you know whats the worst part? If I see Mr X again(if I recognize him that is), I can't even scratch him to diffuse my anger... And then I told myself that to play the veena (which I became really good at), one should have short nails (but not nonexistant ones!! :( ) Now... there are no nails and there is no veena!