The woman above is named Jazz. She has been growing her nails for 22 years. Her longest measures two feet. She was profiled on My Strange Addiction last night, and while being addicted to nail-growing strikes me as being addicted to the slowest release capsule imaginable, I am not complaining. I got to learn all about how she does things (including wipe her ladyparts – see below) and how she regards her nails ("precious to the heart" and a "girl's best friend"). I wrote about her for work, and I also made her my hero, but nothing captures curled and gnarled nails like seeing them in action, so I made a bunch of gifs of her below. I think you'll find that this puts my gif wall of Coko to shame.
I love that the show put Jazz in situations that maximized her ridiculousness, like eating lobster and crab, which she had never done before. Even better: while at lunch, she told her eating companion (her…niece maybe?) that someone in the mall had come up to her and told her that she thought Jazz's nails were nasty. "They're just jealous," was the companion's response. I know that's often the right thing to say, but something tells me that was not the case in this particular confrontation.
Jazz has a bunch of words printed on her nails, to varying degrees of hilarity:
Here's the best (though "Escalade" is a strong second):
I like to think that these are her nails' names – it's not far off as she refers to them with the same amount of pride and concern as her children. And pork chops, I guess.
And just in case you were worried about Jazz overcoming her addiction:
What do you think this is, Intervention?
Poor woman had to cut her damn FUR!
Posted by: Liz | July 18, 2011 at 01:01 PM
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit
Posted by: Erin | July 18, 2011 at 02:00 PM
YES.
I was previously a big Lee Redmond fan, but Lee has been DISPLACED. Jazz's situation might not be as long as Lee's used to be, but she got it DECORATED.
Posted by: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=22001673 | July 18, 2011 at 02:03 PM
i am dizzy! her nails are like sea creatures (making the crab-eating gif all the more confusing. and mesmerizing.)
Posted by: elizabeth | July 18, 2011 at 03:53 PM
I'm not as curious about the wiping as I am about the rings on her fingers . . .
Have they been on there for 22 years or does she take them on and off by threading them over each nail?
Posted by: kerry | July 18, 2011 at 06:32 PM
And yet, she keeps her hair short....
I want to cut off her nails while she's sleeping SO BADLY... becasue they disgust me, but also because I'm DYING to see what her reaction would be.
They're just nails, honey! And grotesque nails at at that!
Posted by: Mardi | July 20, 2011 at 12:43 PM
Oh God!!!!!!!!So long nails. How this can be possible. It makes me feel dirty to see such nails. Initially I thought of the woman holding flowers in her hand. but later on I discovered that its her nails.
Posted by: hire magento developer | July 26, 2011 at 06:52 AM
I could watch her brush her teeth ALL DAY LONG.
Posted by: emaco | July 27, 2011 at 01:50 AM
What if she breaks one? Does the show cover that? I must know!!
PS: Having her eat crab legs was a genius move by the producers. It took me few minutes to decide if that was claw or nail I was watching.
Posted by: Vicki | July 27, 2011 at 10:35 AM
My god,So long nails.
How to sleep with it?
Posted by: Best iPad 2 Case | August 02, 2011 at 08:52 PM
ok .. I have one word that sums up how I feel about this "addiction" - DISGUSTED and I'll tell you why.
A. every time I looked at her nails, I wasn't captivated by the the words written on them, the countless different colors of polish or even how many bottles it took to polish her nails, the thing that kept stealing my attention was the brownish, yellowish, flaky looking, gnarly, gross underside of her nails and my mind would wander to how many thousands, no MILLIONS of bacteria, germs, and other nasties were nesting on those things. *shivers* She is a walking health hazard.
Excuse me while I go decontaminate now.
PS. While your .gifs cracked me up, they made my macbook take a huge dump. Not happy. And they also made my macbook's eyes bleed. And mine too. But, thank you for all the effort you put into this post because, it's things like this that make me feel a bit better about my life. :)
Posted by: Kellie Altieri | September 30, 2011 at 08:52 AM