Examine your zipper!

When I was a boy Carol told me that if I pull on a hang nail it will unzip down my finger, up my arm, over my head and then all of my skin would fall off. I’m sure that she was just trying to prevent me from future hang nail related grief; but I was a believer. Actually, the idea sort of appealed to me. If I was just bones under my skin then I could unzip it and be a skeleton and I could hide under my sister’s bed and scare her. It was a masterful plan with plenty of potential, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get my skin back on without my mother’s help. The point here is that I thought about it for so long as a kid that now at the ripe old age of 33, I can’t look at a hang nail without imagining a great zipper noise and a pile of slightly used, overly pale skin pooling on the ground at my feet. (I'm talking ghostly pale people! I’m from good solid Scandinavian stock. Honestly, there’s barely enough pigment in my skin to keep my internal organs hidden.)


Be glad I censored this picture. Imagine me wearing only a fig leaf glowing like a whitey beacon in a dark setting. ...Actually scratch that. Please don't imagine it. There's no reason for everyone who reads this to be scarred for life.