"Why Fingernails?" Response

By Daniel Taverne

Laughfish.net recently published an article titled, “Why Fingernails?” By John Sammon that humorously delves into the mysterious purposes behind why our creator bestowed upon us our fingernails. After reading Sammon’s article , I thought it would be fun to take a crack at this question myself.

As far as fingernails go, it seems I have more uses for my wife’s fingernails than I do for my own! For one thing, there is nothing more soothing than when they are lightly raked across my scalp, or across my back when it itches. Additionally, since my wife is never without them, I am never without a knife.

Have you ever struggled to break through the thin sheets of cellophane covering cups of ramen noodles? I think it’s a lot easier to get a wisdom tooth yanked out. Thank God for my wife’s ten blades. Amazingly, her hands are virtual Swiss army knives!

What about that crud that accumulates in the corner of your eye that you can’t get out yourself? Well, mine is no match for my wife’s pinkie nail, since it only takes one quick scrape to get it out.

Additionally, just think of the cultural significance of fingernails being scraped across a blackboard. Our childhoods would never have been the same without this sound etched within the deepest recesses of our minds.

Maybe as John Sammon’s article suggested, our fingernails were originally meant as weapons. If this is true, look at what’s happened to men’s weapons over the years: We have been de-clawed by society because we are expected to keep our nails nicely trimmed while women are encouraged to sharpen theirs. Additionally, women are encouraged by our culture to paint a hardening coating upon theirs making them even more battle worthy!

As far as nails being on the toes are concerned, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe the good Lord knew that we would have sleeping spouses, and we would have to limit our in-bed-leg-scratching-movement by carefully scratching our legs with our feet instead of disturbing our spouses by scratching with our hands.

I suppose some slight modification of our finger/toe nails might provide us with some yet to be discovered uses. For example,

Modifying the finger nails by polishing them to high gloss sheen could make them useful as emergency reflectors should you ever get lost in the woods. In addition, Think about it, why limit yourself to one puny mirror when 20 of your reflected finger and toe nails can be seen by satellites from outer space?

Think of what you could build with the material that is clipped from the fingers of 290 million Americans each year. Why, we could create wonderful topiary sculptures by melting them together into blocks, then carving them into animal shapes called integumentaries. They could be put on display on courthouse lawns, and in museums all across America. They could also be glued into sheets called “ply nails” which could be used as a waterproof roofing material. Who knows, maybe one day we could burn them in electric power plants or at the very least, we could use them as firewood.

Are any of the uses I’ve described above reasons why our creator gave us fingernails? Maybe not, but that’s how we’ve adapted to using them. That said, our nails are a natural, renewable resource that, as with our other resources, are exploited to our maximum benefit.