Clipping Toenails is Beyond the Pale for the British

One of the most difficult acts of personal grooming for people of any age, but especially the aged, is clipping the toenails.

In Mexico, where I lived for many years, just about any beauty salon will undertake the job, after fingering their rosaries, cheerfully and cheaply. I can't say whether the horned-toed are catered for in the USA, but it can't be worse than in service-shy Britain.

The British, and especially the NHS, are skilled and voluble in telling one why they CAN'T do this or that and the other. It's easy to get fingernails manicured, clipped, scraped and painted, but mention the nether regions down below and you get a disgusted look and, “Oh, no, sorry!”

There are services that you can book and who will come out, in time, to do your toenails, even the NHS has one, but mention the word “diabetes” and you would think that clipping your poor toenails might cause the disease or aggravate it until you sink into a coma.

Yes, yes, yes...I know!!! Cutting the skin around the nails and causing an infection can be life and limb threatening for diabetics. But how little training needs to be done to avoid that scenario? Not a lot I don't think.

And surely, if this were the only reason for not providing a call-out service, those with toenails like a Chinese war-lord, or an aardvark, could attend an outpatient clinic or hospital and have them done? Nooooo, take your grubby poor old arthritic dogs, with their ingrowing toenails, out of here right now or we'll call security!

Might you not think the danger of infection and crippling caused by ingrowing toenails a greater health risk than clipping them in a clinical environment?

The truth is, the British, after millennia of Empire, are not good at service. They expect the little brown people to eagerly anticipate the advent of bwana's smelly feet and attend to their toenails and any other service they might require.

That's why getting attention in shops is such a chore...toenails?? Get on the bus, Jack!

I have tried all sorts of ways to cut my own toenails since coming back to Blighty. This includes buying long-handled scissors and wrapping a cord around each toe in turn and pulling on it while attempting to clip with the other hand! I usually manage the two big toes – the ones stopping me putting my shoes on – and skip the rest to carry on curling and ingrowing and perhaps looking for my pancreas to exacerbate my blood sugar woes!

I can suggest a good, solid business for a couple of enterprising chicks. Blokes? Forget that, a man would sooner shoot himself than touch another bloke's feet here! especially one of the Ughhhh! OLD folks. This is the land where you are expected to become invisible after the advent of grey hair and a limp, and actually touching an old creature is akin to smooching with a leper.

But two swinging girls with a van and some enterprising spirit would be booked solid for ever and a day by the desperate among the long toenail fraternity. And the services that do exist and who you have to wait for weeks for – and won't do diabetics – charge a minimum of about £20 ($30 bucks) a visit.

Forget it though. The NHS and the Health Authorities, realizing something needed and affordable has invaded their territory will ban the service on grounds of “Health 'n Safety.” Then another bunch of a-holes will try to blame the illicit clippers if they do get a foot problem.

Thanks goodness I'm obtuse, (who said obese!), my toenails might be yellow, horn-ed, ingrowing and on the verge of killing me but at least I can't see them over my tummy!

PS I just realized this is my four hundredth hub article...don't clap, send money!