Toenails

Have you ever thought how peculiar fingernails and toenails are? It is obvious when you cut them off that they aren't alive, but they keep growing anyway. Fingernails seem to grow amazingly fast. I like to keep mine very short, and every time I turn around, I need to pare them down again.

Toenails are a different matter. They are much thicker (at least mine are) and grow much more slowly. I had always wondered (in a back-of-the-mind kind of way) just how fast toenails grow.

Exactly a year ago I was down in Utah helping my daughter and son-in-law celebrate their birthdays (they are 5 days apart). For fun, Maleen and I went and got pedicures. As part of the process, they painted my toenails a deep blue (my choice) and even drew little white flowers on the big toes. They were amazingly pretty, and it took forever for the little sequins they glued on to finally fall off.

Throughout the year I have watched as the bottom line of the blue moved up my toenail. Gradually the paint wore off of all of the toes, except for my left big one, which still has three little blue dots on it. If I was to cut my toenails down to the quick (NOT a good idea), those three little blue dots would disappear.

I can't speak for the littler toenails, but at least for the big one, I can confidently say it takes them about a year to grow from the bottom to the top. And there is a piece of trivia that you probably never expected to know - and didn't even think about in the first place!