Torture

These are Tucker’s nail clippers.  Tiny and barely sharp enough to do their job.  Sort of innocent looking.

Because I suck and cut his finger when he was five months old, they are evil.  The kind of evil that makes him bleed.  The nail clippers that made us both cry were orange.  I’d hoped that the trauma I caused would be associated with them alone and so I switched to white ones.  Because white is less menacing than orange.

Tucker was not fooled by a color change.  I scarred him for life.

This is how I think Tucker sees nail clippers.  With talons, a forked tongue, mean scales and gnashing big teeth.

When Tucker’s nails are long enough to gather dirt, food, and day-old boogers underneath them, I try to remedy the situation by, you know, cutting them.  He’s not having it.

I approach.  At first, he is like “I have no hands.”

Then he gets mad and shoots laser beams at me with his eyes.

Then, he gets worried.

When I continue to approach, he resorts to tears, hoping to get some sympathy from me.

And some more…

So I start begging.

And I wait.

And wait some more because I have the patience of a superhero.

He starts to realize that he’s gonna lose because I’m bigger.

And eventually allows me to approach.

Usually, I manage to do the rest. Sometimes the next day.

When we reach this point, I’m sweating.  Maybe stinky.

We’re finally done.  And suddenly, it’s like the last hour never happened.