A real nailbiter
This week G. George Ostrom has selected a classic column from April 5, 1968.
Our nail-chewing four-year-old daughter Wendy has been the only one in the family who consistently bites her fingernails.
This habit has caused me some concern, so today I sat Wendy on my lap and in my best fatherly manner began explaining that fingernails are not good to eat and that biting them causes inflammation of the cuticles and maker her hands look bad.
She then proceeded to tell me she already knew all this but she liked to bite fingernails and in so many words, “the joy of it was well worth the price.” She also gave me the names of about 183 other kids who felt the same way she did.
In fact, she tried to convince me that a majority of kids under 6 years old in the world are hung up on fingernails, and just to add some punch to her arguments, she dropped the names of a few of her little buddies whose dads are doctors (I had no way of knowing whether this last maneuver was just luck or planned strategy).
Realizing that I was losing ground, I switched to a new tactic by telling her I would take her out to dinner at a nice restaurant if she would stop chewing her nails. She accepted the offer and trotted off to the play room where I could tell her telling 3-year-old brother Clark all about the big deal she made with dad.
One minute flat, here came Clark with both hands stuck in his mouth. He climbed in my lap and pulled the fingers out long enough to ask, “If I stop doin’ this, will you take me out to a nice resseraunt for dinner?”
It would be nice to be able to report that my nail problems ended with a deal being made between Clark and me, but somehow the word seems to have gotten around. Tonight, my wife was observed demurely munching on the end of her trigger finger.
Got a letter a while back from a man in Hartford, Conn. who remembered my first column written over six years ago. Guess I was more flattered by this than any of the letters I’ve received recently.
I’m certainly in the running for worst letter-answerer in the world, but I do deeply appreciate the time and effort so many people take to write, send clippings and generally acknowledge the Hog Heaven Correspondent to the Hungry Horse News.
Near as I can tell, my kid brother, Ritchey, is the person responsible for telling about the North Dakotan who got so mad he threw himself on the floor ... and missed.
Gage McSwenson was in town last Wednesday and I asked him where he’s been hidin’ out. Gage said he’s got a job in Helena as a lobbyist. I told him that the legislature wasn’t in session, but he told me, “That’s the whole idea. I’ve been workin’ on the folks who make up their minds before the issues develop.”