Why I Kept My Nail Clippings in a Jar for 5 Years
Short Answer: Because it’s both hilarious and a way to say I care.
By far the most common question I got was, “What do you tell ladies who wander into your bathroom?” Yes, having a mason jar ever-filling with toenail and fingernail clippings is not the easiest thing to explain to the uninitiated. But every minute of my five-year quest to fill the jar was worth it. Every ziplock baggy I brought to hotel rooms when I traveled; every fork I had to use to get a nail unstuck from a crevice in the floor; every nasty whiff of the jar I got when I accidentally opened it—all of these elements just added to the experience.
I am so happy I kept my nail clippings for as long as I did.
But why?
It started with a simple story in my friend’s apartment, while I was visiting from states away. Tom Wilson told me about something his grandfather had done over 60 years ago. He was in Germany, and his sister in America. Shipping packages was a big thing, and when she got a box from her brother across the ocean, she invited her friends to a small opening party. Imagine her surprise, disgust, and embarrassment, when she opened the box to find nothing but nail clippings inside.
Somewhere across the Atlantic, Tom’s grandfather was cracking up.
I was cracking up too. The moment the story ended, I swore to myself that I would collect my own clippings and one day send them to Tom. We didn’t see much of each other, and I knew that this would not only be eventually hilarious, but a way for us to bond even when we were far away.
Five years, and many explanations to dates later, I sent the final package to Tom.
He loved it.
He went through the whole gamut of expected emotions.
(1) Excitement that he got a package from a distant friend.
(2) Complete Confusion (“I thought it was, like, tea herbs,” he said.)
(3) Complete shock and disappointment. (“Toenails? Really?”)
(4) Admiration to the pure endeavor. (“I mean, that’s a lot of toenails.”)
(5) Understanding.
(6) Love. (“That is oddly, really really sweet, Marc.”)
The Essence of Both Humor and Relationships is Commitment
If I had sent an envelope with one round of trimmings, sure it might have gotten a chuckle, but nothing compared to a whole jar—but why? The answer is the essence of comedy—commitment.
Ask any of your friends who do improv (I’m sure your improv friends have already told you they do improv), the trick to making a scene work is commitment. Don’t try to make people laugh pretending to be a robot who thinks she’s a gorilla on a date; just be the robot who thinks she’s gorilla on a date.
Honestly, the same can be said of any relationship. Trust, understanding, and commitment are required to make it work. And even when we weren’t keeping up with each others’ whereabouts, Tom was with me the whole time—and now he knows this.
I endured this huge undertaking for no other reason that to get a chuckle out of him. What more could you ask from a friend? Money? A shoulder to cry on? Nah—nail clippings in a mason jar.
Although, there is one more thing that’s important to a relationship: Having a truly amazing fiancée who not only loves you despite your collection of nail clippings, but loves you for your collection of nail clippings.* And will photograph you while you’re arranging them into a smiley face on the bedside dresser.
In fact, as I write this she’s yelling at me from another room, “Marc, what am I supposed to do with all my toenails now!?” Then muttering, “Throwing them out just feels so wasteful.”
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that these weren’t just my nail trimmings, they were the trimmings of now-countless helpful souls, willing to indulge my cause—roommates, ex-girlfriends, travel buddies, family members. Anyone with too-long nails in striking distance of the jar got on in there. The nose of the smiley face above is comprised of a particularly large trim from my father.
In fact, in the photos you can pick out some red nail polish, but not all of it was naturally painted. One set came from my sister, also via the post office, during a particularly stressful time in my life.
In the thick of my first law school exams, she mailed me some trimmings adorned with “blood.” They were from Agent Dana Scully of the X-Files, sent to cheer me up. They really did. It was fantastic and unexpected. I may have cried a little.
More nail clipping bonding!
Look, is this article just fluff as an excuse to share these photos with the world? Kinda. But it’s just a little more than that.
This weird project was a part of me. I had stumbled onto a way to create emotion and connection in a part of life that usually has no joy or larger purpose—clipping your toenails. Perhaps now I’ll have to start another project that creates bonding through teeth brushing.
Additionally, this article is a paean to Tom and our friendship. If a letter had accompanied the package—it didn’t, there was nothing but nail—it would have said something like this:
Tom,
I know we don’t talk enough, but you’re one of the purest, kindest, most thoughtful people I’ve had the opportunity to know. Even when we weren’t speaking, I thought of you.
As a reminder, here’s five years of discarded nails.
Love, Marc
PS: Don’t open it—doesn’t smell real good.
May this inspire you to do your own weird crap for no reason other than joy and human connection.
*—She’s telling me now that it’s not the actual clippings, but whatever it is about me that prompted me to do this. Whatever, I’ll take it. I guess I’ll keep her reputation intact.
