When I first got it, it went so deep into such thick skin that I had no way of getting it with any tools at my disposal. So I walked around for months feeling a little stab of pain whenever my weight shifted forward on my left foot. Yesterday I noticed that not only was that pain more pronounced lately, but also that I was clicking when I walked like a dog on linoleum. So I took a look and found this like...plug...of hard skin, this perfect little cylinder of printless flesh, and inside of it is the splinter. My body must have grown that redundant pearl of tough skin around it while slowly pushing it out over the course of 4 months.

This piece had been sort of stamped into it's seating by my constant walking on it, so I had to get my smallest, sharpest knife and slooowly work around the edges like I was trying to remove a single tile from a bathroom floor. Finally, after much cutting and prying, and a big final pull, the meandering leathery growth and the the little spike that caused it came out as one. There was no pain and no blood, not even in the deepest part of the small smooth crater in my toe now. It's all just skin, even at the point where the thing connected. Seriously, the removal site is just a smooth round divot, like someone shot a piece of thick leather with a bb gun.