I’m letting the nail on my left pinky grow out. Other people have their pet projects and I have mine. My goal is to have the nail long enough to render the pinky useless for every purpose except for one.

Imagine me still a smoker with a cigarette dangling from my lip. Three days of whiskers sprout from my gaunt face and sunglasses with purple lenses worn indoors at night hide eyes that show I have not slept since the last time I shaved. My pinky, bent and ready for action, digs its nail into an absurdly large pile of cocaine on the glass coffee table. The others in the room are on full alert as I bring the sample of white powder up to my eager nostril and sniff. Satisfied with the quality, my smile widens to expose a row of gold teeth and I say “Cool beans, brother” or whatever it is people say during drug deals where things are copasetic but could turn violent at any moment.

Truth to tell, I have never been in the presence of coke in that quantity. It’s been about 10 years since I’ve seen it in small amounts either. I’ve probably been in the vicinity of the stuff because I’ve since gone to the bar where I used to score the shit. Dealers back then came and went, but the location remained the same. If you wanted to know who was selling, all you had to do was keep your eyes open for people lining up at the ATM when someone walked through the door. Maybe it’s the same thing today or maybe it’s changed and it’s all dark web and bitcoin now.

I don’t intend to find out. I’ve been down that road already and don’t wish to return, but don’t expect any cautionary tales from me on the subject. When you’ve been as lucky as I have, they just come out sounding like bragging anyway. If you’re going to attend that party, you’ll  have your reasons just as I had mine. Enjoy responsibly. Have fun.

So why even grow a cokenail if I’m never going to use it? To answer that question, I’d like to bring up a friend of mine who is now deceased so I can make fun of him as much as I want. Each of us used to own a  Ford Escort. However, his was an Escort GT so it had a little spoiler on the back. This accessory was far too small to serve any practical function, but my friend liked both it and the vehicle it was attached to. The car eventually proved to be an inadequate cock extender and he traded it in for a Mustang, but for a while it did serve its purpose in an understated way.

My cokenail is a lot like that Escort’s spoiler, both in its understated jaunty appeal and that it’s undersized. I’ve been growing the thing for a couple of weeks and it is not terribly impressive. To be honest, I wouldn’t expect it to impress anyone even if it were as long as an eagle’s talon. Cokenails are usually attached to fingers belonging to monumental douchebags and that’s where much of the appeal lies for me. You can’t get this level of douchiness from driving an Escort GT. You have to drive something like a Hummer and maybe only then if you bought it with cocaine money.

Alas, I don’t think the nail will grow much longer. Rebecca hates the thing and wants it clipped immediately, but she’s not the biggest threat to its continued existence. I am.

I tried the cokenail thing before about five years ago and I catch myself doing now what I did then. There is some flexibility to the nail and I’m frequently, and often unconsciously, bending it with my thumb. It’s only a matter of time before it splits. I suppose I could strengthen it with nail polish, but that seems like cheating somehow.

Nothing lasts forever and when this cokenail has been tossed into the landfill of human endeavor, I’ll find some other quirky pursuit to distract me. Maybe I’ll collect “Night Ranger” t-shirts or eat nothing but canned fish. Life is full of options and sometimes you have to carpe that diem and show it you have nothing better to do.