Chagrined -- With Fingernails

There's a certain type of photo puzzle that can be hugely irksome sometimes. You know the ones -- where they take a photo of some perfectly ordinary object but they get sneaky about it. The picture is either an extreme closeup or at an angle that is confusing or distorting. The maddening thing about it is, if you can't figure out what the object is, as soon as you get the answer you just want to slap yourself silly because you knew that. Of course you did. You just didn't know you knew, that's all.

Well, brace yourselves, Coffee Mates. I'm gonna lay a photo puzzle on you this very minute. But I'm nicer than those other people. This is not a trick photo. Nope. Uh uh. See that thingamajig over there on the left? That's the real deal. No sneaky stuff. Instead of an unusual shot of an ordinary object, this is an ordinary shot of an unusual object. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, [cue theme music from Mission Impossible] is to identify the mystery object. I regret to say there are no fabulous prizes for having the correct answer. On the other hand, the warm fuzzy feeling you get when you're right is in the general vicinity of fabulous. Unless you're wearing your bunny slippers again. That's a different sort of warm and fuzzy.

Speaking of Mission Impossible, remember that tv show from the sixties and early seventies? Peter Graves, Greg Morris, Martin Landau, among others. And Barbara Bain, who played Cinnamon Carter with such elegance and style. I had to look up her character's name just now because I don't really remember details about the silly show. Just that they always had these cool adventures every week and managed to ace the challenges in slick and totally unrealistic fashion each time -- but you happily went along with the gag because it was so much fun.

There is one detail I do remember, though. Ms Bain's fingernails. Yup. She had these incredibly impressive fingernails. There was almost always some scene where she had to manipulate some gadget that was crucial to the success of whatever sting they were running. The thing was, her fingernails were so long, you couldn't understand how she could do that complicated stuff without chipping the polish or -- gasp! -- breaking at least one of the darned things. Listen, I'm sure everybody was thinking the same thing because the cameras always moved in close so you could watch with awe and amazement. But, hey, Barbara was a pro. She made it look easy. And classy. Hooboy. Impressed the hell out of me.

What? The mystery object? Oh. Sure, I'll reveal its identity.

Tomorrow.

Feel free to offer your best guesses between now and tomorrow evening. And I'll tell you this right now -- if I find out all of you already know what that thingamajig is, I am going to be SO chagrined. CHAGRINED I tell you.