Based solely on amateur anthropological observations made at my gym, I don’t see why it can’t be both.
Scylla, I have to ask, and I want you to be perfectly honest. When you were writhing on the ground in searing pain that goes to 11, and you conceptualized the dwarf, were thinking how totally cool that would be to post to the Dope?
Years ago I was running around a girlfriend’s apartment getting ready to go to work. Now, I have one of those toenails that grows thick and gross. I swung around and hit her coffee table square on that toe. For what it’s worth, it was actually a lobster trap converted into a table, and those things can be rather – immovable.
My inner dwarf turned the pain machine right up as I looked at my toe and saw what looked like hamburger with a piece of bone in it. I expressed rather vividly how much it hurt. The girlfriend, who had some mysterious painful foot ailment at the time, took the philosophy of “If my foot is in pain, then no one else’s can be, therefore get over it you wuss.” Thanks, sweetie. Way to bring all the attention back on yourself.
Not wanting to deal with the gore at the time, I just tried to stuff the whole mess in to a sock, then the sock into a shoe. I figured that as long as my shoe didn’t completely fill with blood, then I’d survive until after work.
As it turns out I sheared the nail completely off. Good news, I thought. As long as I keep it clean, the new nail will grow in healthy and normal. No such luck. To this day it resembles a velociraptor’s claw.
Fortunately you could get to places on that side by making three lefts.
I had a bit of trouble reading the first part, my own toes were trying to retract into my body like a winter streaker’s testicles but I made it through and got to the funnier parts. It really does happen that way though, injure a body part and the universe will focus all its vengeful energies on that body part.
I love any Scylla story that features the fat little Penthouse-reading dwarf.
Mine is on casters. 
Unfortunately, the weight of the thing often causes the casters to sink into the carpet…
Why oh why did I open this thread?
queasy Even just reading or thinking about nail or bits-lopped-off injuries always gives me the complete heebies. 
Damn, that one brought back good memories of past Scylla stories.
Oh yeah, sorry about the toe. The marathon will be just the thing for that.
I’m wondering that myself - these stories are making me queasy, too.
AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!
My big toe is throbbing as I read this. Just the image of having a toenail yank out…I’ve lost toenails, but they’ve all fallen out after I cut them too short. I once stubbed my toe and it fell out, but yanking it backwards?
AAAHHHH!!! runs screaming from thread
I just Asher my toe. I have an iPhone with a camera. I could take a picture of it and email it to somebody who could post it with a link.
A digital camera?
no. My iPhone takes polaroids.
God, please no!
“Asher my toe?”
Looks like the painkillers are kickin’ in.
Those are for problems on your butt, though.
There’s an app for that.
OK, I’ll say it…
I see what you did there.
(Big, brown innocent eyes a-flutter) What? What?
In my earlier post I started to type how it’s like when you injure your left pinky finger and even though you think you rarely use your left pinky finger you will realize that it gets used/abused more than you think. But I thought that was redundant so I didn’t post that. Turns out my thoughts were prophetic and I just injured my left pinky finger. I was cutting open a box and my pinky jumped in the path of the scissors, had my right hand not been more attentive and stopped when it hit flesh I may have managed an entire fingertip slice off. As it is I have a nice circular cut from the nail bed to the middle of the finger. I immediately wrapped it and came to tell you guys. Now I feel a little woozy.
Langue de chien, langue de médecin !