I haven’t felt very write-y lately, and that is because I have been very read-y. My brain is consumed with Dungeon Crawler Carl, and much of my stoop time, which is often used for writing pointless blogs, has been spent reading this book series. I’ve found myself on a little break between books 7 and 8 (which is the final available book in the series until next year), so I thought I’d tell you about these nails that have been keeping me company.
This is the first photo I have of them in my camera roll. However, it is not the first time I noticed these shiny pieces of hardware. They’d been on my radar for months.
A Nail Appears
First, a single, silver nail appeared on the ground beneath my stoop chair. I looked around to see if this nail had fallen off the ceiling or a railing or the rocking chair we rescued from the side of the road. Nothing seemed to be the right size or wear level.
This solo nail felt barely touched. Maybe not even used at all. Maybe an animal had left it for me as a gift? Seemed weird, but who knows. Between the Blue Jays that yell at me until I toss them a peanut so they can pull a circus act and catch it midair and my squirrel friends who have been known to leave me small hard gang figurines occasionally, it wasn’t unrealistic.
I left the nail on the porch and began my DCC reading session. One evening after another, I’d spy what I’d come to think of as “my” nail on the stoop somewhere near my chair. If I couldn’t find it without searching, I felt a bit of panic… not too much though, because I’ve still been working on my brain. I felt worried that the nail went missing, I guess.
I wish I had pics of the lonely nail back in its single days, but, ah well. At least I have this duo:
A Second Nail Appears
A week or so later, I discovered another perfectly shiny nail on the ground near my stoop chair.
Oh, and before you think my stoop chair is anything fancy, let me assure you it is not. It is a dark blue and burgundy camp chair that I have to warn people not to sit in because there is a jagged piece of metal near one of the armhole/legholes.
Yes, I know there is a perfectly good roadside rocking chair right next to me. This blue behemoth, which will probably be responsible for my first set of stitches, is the right shape for my writing body. I’ve tried every camp chair in the house, and this is the only one that doesn’t make me creaky when I’m done writing.
I guess I should probably cover up the protruding bits though.
Once the second nail appeared, I dragged Mickey into the mystery. He was also unsuccessful in figuring out a place they could have fallen out of or off of. This basically confirmed that it was a gift from one of my animal friends. Maybe it was my nighttime ghost possum!!
I mean, two perfect-looking piercing agents seem like a perfect possum gift, do they not?
Once there were two nails, I put them up on the table.
A Note on the Table
Y’all, Mickey made this table. Before he landed the job that made the Professor Haus feel less like a name than a prophecy, he went through a few different ill-fitting career options. One of those had him at a Steel Mill, just a mile down the road. His dad worked in steel, so it felt like a nice full-circle moment.
He also got to learn some new skills… like welding. One day, he showed me this table that he made:
- round
- little grate thingie for the center
- thick wide band on the edge
- thick chain triangles for the legs
- cool as fucking hell
It is my official stoop table, and I love it very much.
But this blog is not about tables. It is about nails. In particular, my emotional support nails.
They are arranged slightly differently every day when I come out to greet them. I know this is because of the wind or rain or animals crawling on it. Maybe sometimes it even has to do with the bass of my own music. Who knows.
There have been some days that I’ve come out for stoop time, and my nails are not on the table. Typically, I can find them right away, but there have been a couple of days where I’d resigned myself to being a single nail household once again. Only to find its twin peeping out from beneath the leg of the rocking chair… or underneath the squirrel food bowl that used to be my soup bowl that used to be Rowan’s soup bowl.
I don’t know why I get so much joy out of two perfectly normal and mundane nails, but it makes me smile to see them every day.
Telling People About the Nails
Now, I guess I feel a bit of shame about these emotional support nails. I haven’t really told anyone about them, only Mickey, but that was more of a curious “I wonder where these weird nails came from?” kind of way.
I also told Logan about them when he came to visit, but that was more of a, “Sorry, let me take a picture of these nails before we put anything on the table.”
Not that I feel a little thrill every day when I come to the stoop and see them on the table Mickey made. I also definitely didn’t tell either of them that some days I fantasize about a third nail appearing, and after that a fourth and so on and so, uh, forth.
And I don’t really know why. Sometimes my brain gets secretive about the dumbest things. So I’m telling y’all everything. Call it exposure therapy or call it not giving a fuck, idgaf. It feels good to talk about my emotional support nails.
Do y’all have any emotional support inanimate objects? I would LOVE OT HEAR ABOUT THEM. (not exaggerating my excitement there one bit)
