The Finger Bowl (or, Proper Use of Digits)

Today Your Prude, in a burst of Monday goodwill, introduces a new phase to her blog. In addition to the Lectures, the Disapprovals, the Rantings and the Posts of Confusion, we now have Proactive Posts of Prevention.
These posts will demonstrate that occasionally Prudes desire to teach the world proper behavior BEFORE naughtiness occurs. This saves the world from some unnecessary lectures, and gives Prudes the illusion that our sole task is not only to nip at the world’s heels in disapproval of where they have BEEN, but to take the world by the hand and point out the way in which it should go.
Today let us examine, hand-in-sanitized-hand, the proper use for each and every finger that lingers on the end of your arm.
First dispense with any nonsense that we have 4 fingers and a thumb. Unless something or someone has removed one of your digits, you have 5 fingers on each hand. Each has a name and a task and below we discuss them at finger-length.
Start with your opposable thumbs. They are wonderful creations that enable us to do many things that can’t be achieved by, say, armadillos. Proper use of the thumbs include the popular ‘thumbs up’ sign, firm handshakes, the grasping of any cleaning supplies and their use, and Thumb Wars (though generally a pacifist, The Prude would let her boys engage in Thumb Wars. They resulted in less overturned furniture than conventional wrestling). A word to the wise: no matter how marvelous a word ‘twiddle’ is, Prudes tend to become cantankerous when thumbs engage in twiddling during a lecture. Keep those thumbs quietly reposing atop folded hands when being lectured and the duration of the lecture may be lessened.

Out of all the fingers, Prudes favor the pointer. This is the ‘I am talking to YOU’ finger. The finger that, in the 3-dimensional world, points out all that needs correcting. The finger that rules the world. (Using the knuckle to point, in This Prude’s eyes, can only result in half correction and hence half-rule.) The pointer finger has often been used, especially by (but not limited to) young children, to ‘point’ at something somewhere up the nasal cavity, and occasionally adhere to said something.

Next we delicately approach the center finger. The one that is 3rd in line from the left. And the right. Often called ‘tall man’ in some child’s’ song or other, this finger has one use and one use only in the singular. It anchors the other fingers in place while giving an attractive upside down ‘V’ shape to the hand. This finger should never be used by itself, but only in conjunction with its mates to the left and right. In olden times this finger would ‘walk’ with pointer through the yellow pages but that use is all but obsolete. However, it still partners with pointer to express victory. Or peace. It depends on whether it is the right hand or the left hand. This center finger is not intended to impart editorial comments on the political views, base running ability or driving skills of the rest of the world.

Ring finger is the finger of romance, friendship and fashion. It can bear engagement rings, wedding bands, cocktail rings, and friendship rings with ease and elegance. It is the ‘just right’ finger- not so stubby as the thumb, powerful as pointer, controversial as tall man or wussy as the pinkie.

Alas, poor pinkie. It sometimes will be adorned with rings. It will sometimes stick out at a chic angle from a teacup. Sometimes it will link with the pinkie of another in ‘jinx’ to make a wish. It is often broken during games such as volleyball and tetherball because the other fingers leave it sort of flapping out at the end of the hand with no protection. It is the finger with little self-confidence, which is probably why the deaf community gave it its very own letter. J. At which point pinkie said “Big whoopty-doo. How many words have a ‘J’?”

Fingers. Used properly they produce peace and prosperity. But if you use your fingers for naughty purposes, don’t be surprised to find a Prude Pointer finger in your face, a Prude Thumb in the downward position, and a Prude Pinkie, glad to finally be of use, signaling to you a word that rhymes with ‘perk’. And begins with a ‘J’.