Can a manicure work magic?

My hands are absolutely my least favorite part of my entire body. They're hideous. Seriously.

My knuckles are huge. They're knobby. In fact, when I went to have my ring resized at the jewelry store, the woman working there said to me, "You have big knuckles."

This is a woman who sees hands all day long. She's probably seen them all -- "man hands" (seen that Seinfeld episode?), super girly hands; big hands, tiny hands; pretty hands, disfigured hands; hands with more than five fingers, hands with less than five fingers; hands with invisible knuckles, hands with huge knuckles ... but she still felt it necessary to comment on mine.

My middle fingers are crooked. If you start at the top of my hand and trace my middle finger, it goes straight until it hits that knobby knuckle, and then my finger shoots off into the direction of my ring finger. I don't know why. My grandmother once told me it was a family trait.

I've never felt comfortable showing people my hands, though. The few times I wore rings growing up, if someone asked to look at them, I would curl my fingers under almost in a fist so the person could see only the ring and not my horrible, crooked fingers.

One time I was talking about my hands to K. I told him I wondered if I could my middle fingers broken and put in splints to straighten them out. He looked at me like I'd just told him I was considering a sex change. Then, he told me I'd look like I was constantly flipping people off for a few weeks straight.

I'd heard of people who hated their hands until they started getting manicures. But the thought of me getting a manicure seemed like trying to cover up tacky '70s linoleum by putting a classy throw rug on top of it. I'd only have something pretty on my ugly hands. And what if that just made my ugly hands look that much more heinous next to my pretty, French manicured fingernails? Besides, if I never showed anyone my hands anyway, what's the use?

Now that I have this gorgeous sparkly ring on my hand, people are asking to see it. That means they'll see my fingers.

Won't the manicure at least fit in better now that my ring's there? I mean, maybe people will be so blinded by my pretty, classy nails and sparkly ring that they won't even notice my knobby knuckles and crooked fingers.

A week ago Sunday, I decided to test that hypothesis. I was short on time, so I headed to a little nail salon near my apartment. When I called to ask the store's hours, the man on the phone could barely speak enough English to tell me when they closed. I think he's the one who wound up doing my manicure.

The whole experience wasn't what I'd thought it would be. Pedicures are heaven -- relaxing and fun, and you feel so pampered. I thought a manicure would be the same. Instead, it was actually kind of painful. The man rubbed on my fingernails an electrical tool that produced sounds rivaling that of a dentist's tools. I was worried he would sand my nails down to the point that they'd be as thin as a sheet of paper.

I needed tips to lengthen about four fingernails, so it made sense to just put tips on them all. (Besides, the man couldn't communicate with me well enough to handle doing only a few.) He pulled out some powder and water and started acrilicizing (I just invented a word!) my fingernails. He used the dentist tool thing again, and my fingers were sore from all the sanding and rubbing. He put some salt scrub-like stuff into my hands and told me to wash off in the sink. When I was finished, I sat back down in the chair at the nail station. He looked at me funny and told me the manicure was done.

I'd always thought they had to push your cuticles back and that there was an arm massage involved. I thought it would be like a pedicure, where they take care of your whole feet instead of just your toes. This manicure was really only about the nails.

My fingernails looked good, but they still looked out of place on my ugly hands. I took a picture to post when I wrote about the whole experience, but I'm serious when I say my hands are ugly. The pictures were too. And if I post them, you could sit and stare at my hideous hands for hours, thanking God that you don't have hands like that. Or you could have nightmares, and I don't want to do that to you.

Eight days after the manicure, I'm realizing how quickly my fingernails grow. I'm not sure if I can keep up this manicure thing. At least with a pedicure, you can go two weeks before you have to redo it yourself or shell out another $30 for a professional job. And like I said, at least that's relaxing.

I might go this weekend to see what a fill takes to just spruce up my nails. Maybe it's not so bad after your first one, since you're not starting from scratch. Who knows? Maybe I'll get used to it and really appreciate the way it looks. At least it's a better solution than breaking my two middle fingers.