When I turned 40, I told my husband that he’s had 18 pretty slack years in terns of my maintenance. From that moment on, it was going to be costly in both time and money. I was turning “high-maintenance”. Well, that lasted about a month. Problem is, I just don’t mind wearing my favorite comfy clothes and cutting my own nails.... and I’m just too cheap to have my hair done and re-done and done again. I like how it feels to be “high-maintenance”, but it’s just so much work.

I’ll be honest - the main reason that I can’t be high maintenance is that I’m not good at it. In my month-long “I’ll be high-maintenance” phase, I decided to wear fake fingernails to make myself look more professional in my work. I bought the most expensive kind and glued them on (I wasn’t quite ready for acrylic gels). They looked good... impaired my typing but looked good. I wore them for a few weeks.

I wore them all the way to Chicago where three of us were presenting two seminars. I was traveling with two men and even though the nails made traveling difficult, I tried to look “natural”. I kept the nails on through the whole plane trip - writing out my name on the travel tag, showing my passport, zipping and unzipping my coat. I felt a wave of success. We arrived at the Conference Center where I checked in, signed my signature and unlocked my door without one “nail -incident”. My confidence was high the next day as I “suited” up for the talk. I dressed myself without snapping a nail. All ten nails were in their places when I left my room to lead the seminar.

And, then it happened - maybe because I wasn’t paying attention, or maybe because I started to focus on the seminar and not the nails. The sound man put the microphone onto my ear, clipped the cord on the back of my collar and handed the receiver to me. Apparently, he wasn’t going to slip his hand into the waistline to attach it to the back of my pants. There was no one else to ask. With ten fake long nails, the clipping would be nearly impossible. And it was. In the first attempt, there was a ‘POP’.... the first nail was catapulted across the room. Since I had too many other nails still on my fingers, I couldn’t get any of the other fingers to grasp the clip and so, one by one, I lost nails. I only lost three, but it’s awfully hard to make gestures and point with a laser and look people in the eye when you have seven beautiful fingers and three nail-less fingers exposed for all to see. I rambled on and on and got through the seminar without any of the grace that I hoped the long nails would give me.

And that was the official end of my “high-maintenance” phase. Cheap. I’m still really cheap. After everyone left the seminar, I found my way around the floor and gathered up all three of my lost nails... the little traitors.