You are afraid of the claw

One day at work, I was really, really, really, really bored. I had nothing to do but stare at the walls, twiddle my thumbs, and marvel at the intricacies of the human body.

I started staring at my hand. Really staring. My knuckes suddenly seemed fascinating and I flexed my fingers over and over again to watch the tendons and ligaments work in perfect union just under the skin. I marvelled at the multitude of things I could do with my hands and how each bone and muscle must function properly in order to perform the most simple task.

I flipped my hands over to examine the palms. I looked carefully at the lines criss-crossing the palms and at the swirls of my fingerprints. I wiggled my fingers some more and began to think about how strong my hands are (in comparison to the rest of my body). I bent my fingers into a claw-like shape the pushed on the fingertips. Yup. Those are some strong fingers. I'm pushing as hard as I can and my claw isn't collapsing at all. How useful, I thought.

Hmmm... useful.... useful for what exactly? Well, anytime I need to grip something, especially if I'm going to grip and then pull. Like if I was opening a really heavy door. Or, let's say I needed to dig in the dirt but didn't have a shovel. Strong fingers might come in handy. Maybe I got into a fight and needed to claw at someone. It would be very useful to have strong fingers with which to claw at your opponent, I would think. Especially, if you wanted to claw their eyes out, right?

But if you were fighting an able-bodied opponent. surely they would be resisting with their own strong hands and fingers. How would they do that exactly? Well, the most obvious way would be to grab my wrist and try to keep my claw away from their face. Which would be harder? Trying to claw someone's face or trying to keep your own face from being clawed?

This was worth an experiment. I tightened my fingers again and began to move the claw toward my face. I grabbed my wrist with the other hand and tried to force the approaching claw away from my eyes.

It was an epic struggle. I contorted my face and began to make sound effects to add drama to the scene. Left hand approaches... no! It's forced away by righty! Right hand seems to have an extra advantage, but wait! Argh! The claw gains some ground as righty wears down! Will Andrea loose her eyes after all?! There can be only one winner! Only one will be victori...

"Andrea. What the h*ll are you doing?" a co-worker asks from the doorway.

I'm startled by her sudden appearance. Think fast, Andrea! "I was, uh, stretching."

"Really? Why were you growling?"

"Well, you know...it was a stretching-noise."

"Uh-huh. Right." She looks at me strangely for another minute then leaves, unconvinced.

I just thought it would take too long to explain to her my fascination with the mysteries of the human body. Well, that and she did catch me trying to claw my own face off. That's a little embarassing.