Leonard was an unrepentant toenail grower.

His was a hidden pleasure, a diversion that bordered on a psychosis. It started idly one evening, before he changed out of his work clothes. His toenails had grown past their usual length, and one of them simply slit open the sock.

It was like receiving the rapture.

The women in Leonard's workplace found him odd, and slightly creepy, even though there was nothing overtly wrong with him – in fact, he was personable, dressed well, and headed a "Toys for Tots" charity at Christmas. Despite his inoffensive nature and charity work, the women in the office avoided him, probably because they sensed the gigantic length of his toenails.

To some women, excessive toenail growth suggests a deep, fundamental lack of moral character. Leonard didn't know this, so his love life had been a disaster since he started experimenting in a serious way with extreme toenail growth. He could usually manage the first few dates, but as soon as relationships moved into the sock-removing phase, they did not last much longer.

On one occasion, he had to take a date to the hospital when his tremendous toenail nicked her behind the ear, and opened up what turned out to be a life-threatening wound. (How was he to know that she was a haemophiliac?) The would-be paramour placed the blame for her near-brush with death squarely on the sharp edges of his large right toenail. "You could have killed me with that fucking thing! What's wrong with you? Cut them you freak!"

It wasn't that Leonard didn't cut his toenails at all. Oh he clipped them, as much as he hated it. He followed the American Podiatric Medical Association's advice (straight across, no longer than the end of the toe), which he did as often as he could muster up the will. Often his nails exceeded the ends of his toes by several millimetres, and in one thrilling month in the year 2000, by a full centimetre.

That following summer at his friend's cottage, his buddies were good-naturedly mocking his cuticlistic foot-extensions, while Leonard walked to the cooler. Paying more attention to their jibes than where he was going, Leonard walked right into a large cedar Adirondack chair. His left big toe struck the wood dead-on and there was a tremendous crack.

Unfortunately, the sound was not the wood splintering under the assault of his mighty toenail, it was the nail itself. It was bent backwards, roughly about midway up his toe. It was excruciatingly painful, so much so that Leonard was not even able to scream, "fuck!" He did manage a strangled bellow. He limped for several weeks afterwards.

Even Leonard had to admit that if his nail had been shorter, the accident would have proved less of an ordeal. But he did not start trimming them. Leonard was made of sterner stuff than that.

He stopped cutting his toenails altogether on that day in 2001. Life was too short to waste it on cuticle maintenance. He saved upwards of two minutes a week, or 90 minutes each year! Then he found other small efficiencies: one hour a week hanging his clothes right out of the dryer instead of ironing them later; 45 minutes a week not making his bed; 30 minutes a week by only flossing every other day. So on, and so forth, until by the end of the process, he was saving almost a half-day each week.

That might not seem like much, but put it in other terms: A half-day each week accumulated into extra 26 extra days per year. That led to almost an extra year in 13 and a half years. Over an average lifespan, that could mean an extra five and a half years.

These were heady times for Leonard. Most of his changes were little things, or hidden, so outwardly, he seemed the same. But he had changed. Leonard was a master of time. When you realize that you are the master of something as big as time, you start to feel better about yourself. This countered the long-toenail juju he had been exuding, because suddenly, women found him very attractive.

The affairs went much better. The toenails were accepted by these women as necessary defects that they would correct when they "fixed" him. But alas, the women found themselves cut from Team Leonard before the toenails.

Eventually, Leonard found that he had to trim the nails before they would break out of his socks. (Buying socks was more time-inefficient than the occasional toenail trim.) But by any measure, the toenails were still longer than normal, even right after he cut them. They were his symbol of his new life.

Never once did Leonard really consider what to do with those extra days. They were taken up by his improved social life. Someday he would meet a woman who could love him -- even with his toenails – for the man he was. He was energized an excited by the possibilities.

He had his final epiphany shortly thereafter: Imagine how much more time he would save if he stopped watching television?

The assassins came for him later that week.

-The End-

Published in Yareah Magazine, April Issue, 2009