You are walking to the store when you step on a perfectly placed two inch nail. The nail pierces the sole of your jump boot, the point planting firmly in the arch of your left foot. A deep, guttural, almost primal FUCK escapes from the hellish nether regions of your lungs, where only the blackest air dares to travel.
Two passing young women, metal-heads judging from their respective Motorhead and Helloween t-shirts, take notice of your thrashing voice. They tell you that they are impressed with your vocals, then ask why you’re shouting.
You tell them you stepped on a nail.
The shorter girl, who says her name is Kim, says something about stepping on nails being “brutal” and invites you to a concert that night at The Moon, a local tavern that has metal acts on Monday nights. Kim is really cute and you’ve been feeling really down since Sarah dumped you, so you say you’ll see her there even though you don’t really like metal.
Later on, at the show, you meet up with Kim. After a few drinks you notice Kim is hopping around on one foot. Kim says she really liked your idea of stepping on nails to remind yourself of the pain of existence and she’s been telling everyone about it. You try to tell Kim that you stepped on a nail accidentally but the music is really loud and her eyes are the prettiest green and you can’t help but kiss her and she kisses you back and it’s just the best.
You and Kim begin to see each other regularly, sometimes during the weekend, but always on metal night at the Moon. You begin to notice more and more people hopping around on one foot at metal Mondays; your nail thing is catching on, you little trendsetter. You consider telling everyone to stop, but you figure it will work itself out.
It doesn’t work itself out. From the metal scene, ‘nailing’ as it soon becomes known branches out to just about every local music scene in town, then the next town over, so on and so forth until it’s a nationwide phenomenon.
Tetanus diagnoses skyrocket. You are crushed with guilt. You have difficulty sleeping. Dark circles form under your eyes. You begin drinking to numb the emotional pain.
Kim sees the torture in your soul and loves you more.