# I'm 55 and I've never bought a pair of fingernail clippers in my life
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 24, 2025, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288 "2025-07-24T22:10:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/1 "2025-07-24T22:10:21Z")
Yet I always have a pair in my house.
I’m posting this because I’m curious if anyone has had a similar experience.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/2 "2025-07-24T22:15:14Z")
Likewise. I have a bunch that were included in various grooming kits that I got as gifts or were somehow bundled with something else I was buying. They don’t really ever stop working, so they replicate over time.
Not as many as I have USB power adapters and cables, though.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/3 "2025-07-24T22:22:41Z")
Yeah, they kinda get dull after awhile.
@Grr, someones buying them at your house. They don’t grow on trees.
Pens. I’ve bought boxes of them. Never a pen when you need it.
Funny tho’, if you dump a drawer you’ll find 35 pens I’ve never seen. A sharpie ot two that may or may not work. Various pencils. And, of course crayons.
And none were there just yesterday when I was looking for anything to write with.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/4 "2025-07-24T22:24:13Z")
I’ve never bought paperclips.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/5 "2025-07-24T22:25:20Z")
Oh, you’re the guy at the office who stole them all 😆
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/6 "2025-07-24T22:25:22Z")
Until last week that would be true.
Because my late mom would dutifully buy me some for either Christmas or my birthday.
I lost the ones she had given me and had to get a new pair.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/7 "2025-07-24T22:26:09Z")
This explains it: [Or All the Seas with Oysters - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Or_All_the_Seas_with_Oysters)
> Struck by the fact that there are never enough pins yet always too many coat-hangers, a bicycle shop owner begins to speculate about the possible parallels between natural and man-made objects.
Read here: [Galaxy Magazine (May 1958) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1958-05/page/n49/mode/2up?view=theater)
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### Author:  [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/8 "2025-07-24T22:40:30Z")
Nail clippers are quicker than filing. I use baby ones; smaller so easier to maneuver.
I have 3 pens and know exactly where they are.
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### Author:  [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/9 "2025-07-24T22:43:54Z")
I don’t like clippers. I use cuticle scissors for cutting and roughly shaping my nails, then to finish I file them with an emery board.
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### Author:  [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/10 "2025-07-24T22:51:13Z")
I don’t think I bought underpants, socks or undershirts until I was in my early 30s. My parents always gave me those things for Christmas and birthdays. I may have thought it was weird, but then I got married and they stopped buying them for me. I eventually wondered why all my socks and undies had holes in them. It was then that I realized my parents had stopped buying me new ones, and that I had to go out and do it for myself.
Damn, good undershirts are stupid expensive. I should’ve appreciated my parents’ gifts more back in the day.
Eta: it may have just been undershirts and socks they bought me. I don’t know if underpants were part of the gift boxes. That being said, I also don’t remember ever buying underpants when I was younger. Now my wife just does it when the current batch get raggedy.
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### Author:  [@I.Dunno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I.Dunno)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/11 "2025-07-24T22:53:38Z")
I’m 73 and still using the shiny, heavy duty pair my mother gave me that was her father’s, after he died. I was about to graduate high school at the time. Prior to that, used whatever was in the medicine cabinet at home. So I too have never bought a pair either.
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### Author:  [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/12 "2025-07-24T22:54:32Z")
I am in my late fifties and I have never been to a funeral, memorial, or celebration of life thing.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/13 "2025-07-24T22:55:22Z")
Oh yeah, I grew up thinking all things were _provided_ as needed.
It was kinda shocking to get away from home the first time and realize when I ran out of shampoo I had to go out buy it.
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### Author:  [@I.Dunno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I.Dunno)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2025, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/14 "2025-07-24T22:55:54Z")
Well, just remember what Yogi Berra said: “If you don’t go to other people’s funerals, they won’t go to yours!”
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### Author:  [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/15 "2025-07-25T00:11:01Z")
Hmm, come to think of it I don’t think I’ve bought a pair either and yet I have 3 of them in various drawers and bags. Not actually sure where they appeared from. That _is_ weird. 😄
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### Author:  [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/16 "2025-07-25T00:26:58Z")
Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever bought a pair, either. Back when I started college my mom bought a pair for me. Now I’m 45 and I’m still using that same pair.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/17 "2025-07-25T00:48:50Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#):
>
> someones buying them at your house. They don’t grow on trees.
For example, apples and pine cones grow on trees but I have zero of each at my home. But several nail clippers. I suspect my wife bought one though to keep me from gnawing at my toes on the sofa.
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### Author:  [@TheBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBryan)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/18 "2025-07-25T00:56:39Z")
Yep. I always just had a few around. When I was in my late 30s, I made a trip to Florida and discovered on about day 2 that my fingernails were too long. I went to Walgreens and couldn’t find the fingernail clipper aisle. Went to Walmart and wanted to run out screaming. Walmart does that to me.
So I didn’t know what I was going to do until I went to play golf the next day, and they had a basket of “tourist” fingernail clipper emblazoned with the word “Florida”. It’s like they knew I was coming.
A few years ago, though, I was at a buddy’s house, and he let me use his clipper to clip a hang nail. It was the coolest clipper ever, so I boght a three-pack on Amazon.
Probably set for life now.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/19 "2025-07-25T01:00:06Z")
I have one pair that I’ve had for decades. No idea how I acquired it. Around ten years ago I was going out for a date and when I was almost there I realized that my nails were way too long. I stopped at a 7-11 and bought a pair which I keep in the car and are seldom used.
I always grab a pen when I stay at a hotel. I have a few of them around.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-55-and-ive-never-bought-a-pair-of-fingernail-clippers-in-my-life/1021288/20 "2025-07-25T01:05:56Z")
I bought a pair in Tokyo about 30 years ago and still have it. It cuts well and doesn’t seem to have dulled in the slightest. Wasn’t expensive, or at least not by Tokyo standards.
I suppose that Japanese nail clippers are benefitting from some of the know-how, craftsmanship, and tradition that goes into stuff like katanas and high-end sushi knives.
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