What proceeds is a comic romp, but with sounds of sadness instead of sassy montage music.
I retrieve the bottle of nail polish from the depths of my bag and set it on the table, where it immediately sticks. Then I quickly grapple it away before it can totally fuse to the surface, and holding it between my fingers, which are sporting freshly painted yellow fingernails, I peer into the bottom of the bag and pull out my Kindle, where a fiendish blob of polish threateningly clings to the bottom edge of the cover, but thankfully has not touched the actual device. (Editor's note: I have already spilled red wine and water, on separate occasions, on my Kindle, which is part of what prompted the purchase of the case). I scratch at the gooey blob on the cover to prize it away, and more or less just rub it into the surface and into my fingers.
With a sense of futility I gaze upon the other blob at the bottom of my bag, catching the light of my dining room and merrily winking up at me. It'll dry.
I take the nail polish bottle and move into the bathroom. My fingers are already conjoined with the bottle, like the rites of a Celtic marriage, but for some reason I still find it a good idea to use them to spatula away a majority of the polish. The result is as disastrous as you'd expect any idiot could have guessed if they weren't impatient at having to have to clean up nail polish goo mess after a long walk home from work, and if they weren't totally starving and actually more focused on the cupcakes from Dozen Bake Shop in the bag in the kitchen. But anyway.
I scrape away the polish goo as best I can with the pads of my fingers, trying to save my precious nails, which is more or less to say I smear the goo more fully around the bottle and my fingers, seemingly determined at my own self-destruction.
Okay. I need nail polish remover. And cotton balls. I drop, or rather, violently fling, the polish into the sink, then use my wrist to edge open the cabinet under the bathroom sink. With one hand I grab the nail polish remover (acetone-free) and plunge the other into the bag of cotton balls. I don't really need to grab them because I come out with about six sticking to me anyway. I carefully pour remover onto some of the cotton balls the furthest distance from my still safe nails, and start scrubbing.
I'm proud to say that I got about 80% of the polish off of my fingers and off of the outside of the bottle, but it wasn't all without final casualties to the precious nails. This all started with the great idea that I had of "I'll do a manicure at work!" and has now become "I will have acid-happy Big Bird fingers!"
Ah well, the color is at least seasonal.
Photo courtesy of http://www.makeupandbeautyblog.com/nails/these-new-loreal-spring-nail-colors-make-it-hip-to-be-riche/.
