Gooseye and gangrene

I've been rehearsing for a few hours today, we use a table cloth that my mother has woven as an underlay for the music. The pattern is, if I remember correctly,  called "Gåsöga" or Goose eye in english, it's always been one of my favourite table cloths.

After playing for a while I looked at my left hand and made up a joke: "Hey, what's up with your fingers, have you got gangrene? No, my guitar has  Martin Lifespan strings!" I know it won't be a wide spread joke, you have to be a guitarist to enjoy it but I tell it anyway because it's mine. The strings in question are coated with Phosphor Bronze "Treated for superior performance and long life". Well, they sound ok but something in that mixture makes the skin go black, they leave my fingertips in an unappetizing state and it takes a while to scrub them clean with a brush. A musicians life is truly filled with suffering. It probably negatively affects my prospects of meeting someone too...