Hands

Once upon a time thirty years ago these hands were the most beautiful soft pieces of art.  These hands were the most talked about delicacies.  No really they were.  Mom, dad, grandmother, grandfather, and everyone in between use to say, “Aww such cute soft little hands.  Oochy goochy gooo.”   Yes, I had to deal with that too and thank god I cannot remember it.  Well, that period didn’t last long as I grew older and did stupid things that  we all look back on and ask ourselves, “Why did I do that.”  One thing that sticks in my mind forever and even until this day is the teasing and taunting my oldest brother does. If there was a professional teaser he would be the grand master.  He would not let up even as he watched my hands grab knives and throw them at him. All four fingers and thumb was involved in this dangerous act of trying to get freedom.  The freedom was from him.  For his and my sake, these hands had bad aim.  Hopefully, deep inside I meant to miss but at that moment in time I wish I wouldn’t have.  One day after I threw a knife at him he took fake blood, it was near Halloween, and squirted it out on his leg.  Scary, my hands quivered and never again did that happen.  Stupid me I just stared punching walls  instead and one day that wall happen to be a old window.  My knobby knuckles clashed with that thin old chicken barn window.  You can only imagine what happened.  “Mom, I need some stitches.”  She instantly knew why.  A scar haunts me everyday on my right hand ring finger.  I smartened up after that and learned to ignore him. I always liked to tinker with things.  My hands had such a hard time with all this though. Come to find out the reason my knuckles were like knots and I had not even one straight finger was due to the fact of the A word.  You guessed it, arthritis.  Such a young age to have to deal with it and nothing to look forward to.  You see, it will never go away it will only get worse with time.  To add insult to injury, being a stupid teenager and getting into fights to protect your friends, doesn’t help out.  Especially when the fight involves me grabbing a beer bottle and smashing it over some strangers head.  This act of ignorance cost my already achy hands a big cut  to the bone.  Now when I point with my right pointer finger, my finger is straight but I am literally pointing at the ground.  To top it off my beautiful finger nail, on that finger, grows flat.  It has no shape.  To make up for this I had to do something weather it be on purpose or not. More than likely not.  I happen to be working and got my ring finger in the way and AHHHH.  I cut that finger to the bone.  The knife I was cutting with slipped right over the top of my finger going through the nail and to the bone.  The nail still grows but the coolest part is that I grow two nails on that one finger.  Yes, I now have eleven finger nails.  It’s very painful all the time though and its been two years since this incident.  I joke with my dad because he only has about seven fingernails.  He is accident prone.   The injury that ends the destruction of these once master pieces or hands is credited to my wife, a clean freak.  She, just prior to me slipping in the kitchen and falling, used dusting spray on the refrigerator.  Catching my two hundred pound body on my delicate but beat up hands, the out come was not good. To the hospital again I went.  I had to get my right hand pinned, stapled, and plated back together.  The hand was in a cast for two and a half months and following that was physical therapy.  Until this day the hand is in great pain and suffering.  My pinky finger almost tucks up under my ring finger which irritates me like no other.  To be honest my hands are some of the cleanest ever but they look disgusting.  People hesitate to shake these “things”.  They look like a hand you would see on a tree in a kids show.  Creepy.