Showed up at the nail salon yesterday, with the recently "de-acrylicized" and "non-chipped" gel overlaid nails in sorry shape--they were just too weak to handle even normal right-hand activities of daily living. Just as before they'd had any reinforcements, they were splitting and tearing in exactly the same places. Though I don't pick with them, they were threatening to wear down to the quick (the way my left-hand nails need to be) and looked just plain raggedy. Had to keep reinforcing the gel with protein nail-straightener and filing/trimming away the notched portion. Oh, well. So they're back to being acrylics--this time a tad shorter than the two nails that do the main picking duty. Since I'm going to record in a week and a half, I'm going to get a professional file-down just before I leave town in order to keep them from clicking on the pickguard; but just in case, I'm bringing rubber finger-cots too.