A couple of weeks ago, in an effort to look more civilised, I went and "got my nails done". In a marvel of modern technology, after just an hour of grinding, filing, gluing and enamelling, interspersed with some stern looks from the nail technician as she removed bits of garden from under my cuticles, my jagged and stained nail nubs were transformed to glossy purple talons.
I was very pleased with myself, right up to the bit where I had to pay for the new appendages. It wasn't the cost, exactly, although it was an indulgence. It was the fact that I could no longer get my card out of my card wallet. I fumbled and I fussed and in the end I had to admit - I couldn't operate my newly embellished fingernails. I had to ask the nice lady behind the counter to take out my card, then I had revelation number two when I couldn't use my fingers to key in my pin number. I had to poke at the keys with my new nails ... these things should come with instructions.
I had to use a kind of pincer movement to get a grip on my car keys and once I got to work my usually efficient sweep through my handbag for my swipe card was an inelegant scrabble.
Typing had to be relearned, and fast because, you know, deadlines! My new fingernails kept getting stuck between the keyboard keys or helping themselves to the letters above the ones I'd intended.
I started thinking - we women do some daft things to ourselves at times.
Take shoes. (Do not actually physically take my shoes. Nothing comes between me and shoes).
Men's shoes are flat-soled, sturdily fastened and you rarely see a bloke kicking his shoes off under the desk at work, then grimacing when he has to put them on again. Blokes can stride out in their shoes. Run, even.
I can barely walk in some of my taller footwear. They are the ones I call my "sitting down shoes". They are for office-only days and heaven help me if I don't get a nice close parking space.
They pinch my toes and hurt my feet, and have you ever looked at women's shoes, I mean really looked at the shape of them? They aren't even remotely feet-shaped.
On walking-around days I have to be more selective. If there's going to be grass involved, spiky heels are a no. Anyone who's seen women at the races who did not think this through will know what I mean. Spiky heels sink in. Then you have to lurch to get them out. It's not pretty and nor is the alternative - the pitched forward tippy-toe walk so your heels don't touch the turf.
If there's a threat of grass, go wedges or platforms. But not if there's any risk of gravel. If you come to gravel, don't do it. Just don't - get someone to carry you. A complete stranger will do.
When platforms hit the shoe shops again a couple of years ago (I was there for their first incarnation in the '70s) I was delighted. They would be so much more convenient than spiky heels, so much easier to walk in.
I bought a pair, wore them to work, and promptly upended myself in the middle of Warren St in front of a courier driver who very kindly pretended not to have seen.
I had trodden on a stone. A really small stone, which acted as a fulcrum to the flat surface under my new platforms and levered me clean off my feet. I grazed my knee and bruised the hell out of my pride. And I have never trusted those orange platform sandals since.
Of course, this is assuming you can keep your shoes on your feet. Women's shoes are attached to their feet in the flimsiest fashion, if at all. There's the slingback that repeatedly becomes unslung and turns the shoe into a flapping trip hazard, the tiny straps that can't hold the weight of a tiny woman, let alone an average sized one in a hurry, and the wrap around ankle ties that have to be done up to tourniquet strength before they will deign to keep the shoe in its place.
Then there are slides that don't have anything keeping them on at all. I have an adorable pair in green, but they just fall off, and sometimes I've gone quite a few paces before I realise one's missing.
Add a pair of teetering shoes to a floaty dress, and really I should just stay in the house. Especially lately, with the wind the way it is. I don't do a good "Marilyn Munroe" and walking around holding my dress down doesn't allow me enough spare hands to carry my handbag and text at the same time.
Long frocks - now, they don't blow up anywhere near as much. But my favourite one is too narrow round the bottom edge for me to take anything bigger than toddler-strides. So teetering and toddling both at once, with one eye on the grass and another on the gravel. Then, having grown my hair lately, the wind whips it into my eyes and I'm a sight impaired teeter toddler. The public would be best advised to stay out of the way. Maybe I should employ a pilot vehicle?
We women really do do daft things to ourselves. I spend hours getting dye in my hair, I've ripped my eyebrows out, I don't dare rub my eyes if they are scratchy or my mascara goes south and I look like Alice Cooper ... it's all very uncomfortable and inconvenient, but I have found a couple of major positives about the new improved superior strength fingernails.
They are marvellous for pinching tiny weed seedlings out from my vege garden, and absolutely perfect for scratching the dogs.