“I didn’t shout. I didn’t argue. I just made him notice it.”
“Notice it?” the first lady repeated.
“Yes,” she nodded. “Every time he bit his nails, I would quietly stop what I was doing… and stare at him.”
The first lady blinked.
“That’s it?”
“Oh no,” she said. “That was just the beginning.”
She leaned closer.
“After a few days, I started gently copying him. When he bit his nails, I would also bite mine. Slowly. Right in front of him.”
The first lady looked horrified.
“You did WHAT?”
The second lady shrugged.
“He found it… unsettling.”
She continued, “Then I escalated. When he bit his nails, I would look at him, bite mine, and then ask him very politely, ‘Should we both continue, or should we stop together?’”
The first lady almost spilled her tea.
“And that worked?”
“Oh yes,” she said confidently. “He stopped within a week.”
There was a pause.
The first lady sat back, thinking carefully.
“That’s incredible…” she said slowly. “But… what if he started again?”
The second lady smiled again, this time a little mischievously.
“Oh, he never dared to,” she replied. “Because now, whenever he even looks at his nails… I start reaching for mine.”
They both sat in silence for a moment.
Then the first lady whispered:
“…I think I’m more afraid of you than I am of my husband now.”
And both of them burst into laughter over their tea.