Fingers

 

Count them.  You have ten.  What are you doing with them?

 * * *

Last Saturday was brutally cold on the beach. Hypothermia stalked walkers. Why, later in the day it was possible to find fingers littering the beach, fingers that had frozen and fallen off like the last vestiges of a once fiery but now frozen romantic fling. 

Well, maybe that’s an over-blown hyperbole about how cold it was, but fingers get the brunt of the extreme cold. Poor things, they’re the last living body part to get blood, competing with toes. But this is about fingers, not toes.

Now fingers are essential appendages. Life would be tough to manage without them. Like washing dishes, for example.

The morning finds me standing over the sink, washing the previously used spatula.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“About to cook some bacon and eggs, so I’m washing the spatula.”

“With your fingers?”

“What’s wrong with fingers?”

“No soap?”

“Why? It’s just a little greasy.” In retrospect there was probably a better answer, but what the heck. Don’t look back.

“Well, don’t blame me if you die.”

Washing the spatula with my fingers reminds me of the creek-bank camping days of my youth. We cooked a lot of eggs, fish, potatoes and bacon over an open fire. Bacon was a must. Where else could the grease come from?

Fingers did a lot of work. Like toasting Wonder Bread on a forked stick over that same fire. You haven’t lived until you wrap bacon in ‘light bread’ and dip it in grease drippings. Hot grease kills all germs, even Covid. No vaccine mandates were needed in those days.

But that was then, this is now. We’re more regimented and refined, more germ averse, more hygienically woke and aware of scoffers claiming we didn’t wash both the inside and outside of the pan.

Oh, yes, the pan. I forgot. It had to be washed, too, and detergent just didn’t compare to creek water, sand and mud. Spick and Span was developed using this formula, I’m certain.

Fingers can do more than wash dishes. They don’t have tongues, but they can talk just the same. They are very expressive. Each one could tell a story if they could talk. Except the pinkie finger. Now, it’s a hard one to figure out.

The thumb can type faster than the brain thinks. Give it a cell keyboard and stand back. It tells tales, divulges secrets and boasts great things. It’s directional also: ‘thumbing’ a ride, thumbs up, thumbs down, or saying, “Get out of my life.”

The so-called index finger is versatile, expert at pointing out blame, wagging at someone’s mistake and drawing pictures in the air. Plus, it has a wicked ‘come-hither’ suggestive beckoning motion.   

Ah, the middle finger, the intimidating brute of the bunch. It has a swagger and a belligerent presence. It has a low IQ and likes gyms. But in conjunction with the thumb, its ‘OK’ shows heart.  

The fourth finger, or the ‘ring finger,’ is the romantic accessory. Of all the fingers, it has more stories to tell, more tears to shed, more heartbreaks to remember and heartthrobs to recall. It’s born with lust and is also the most expensive finger for a man to accessorize.

Poor pinkie. Why are you here? Just to balance things out? What would a hand look like without your grace, charm and gentle presence? Besides, it takes five fingers to form an octave, and what would piano music be without you?

Collectively, fingers can be either fists or open palms. Fists can’t receive blessings, but open palms can. Which will it be?

* * *

I guess my fingers did an OK job on the spatula. I’m still living. My five fingers and I salute you today.

 

Bud Hearn

January 31, 2022