June 18, 2008
It’s An All
Thumbs World

When did it become “thumbs rule”?  Fingers, fore through little, are in danger of becoming an endangered species.  Why some folks are so busy thumbing their way through life they occasionally forget to signal with their middle finger when getting cut off in a roundabout (no e-mails please that’s a joke). 

The under thirty set, thanks to a lifetime spent with video game controllers or text messaging on the cell, are perfectly comfortable in this “thumbs are king” environment.  Not so for we in the geezer set.  We’re handicapped by being trained to use all ten digits in “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” world of typing.  Today finds us more than mystified by miniscule keyboards encountered on PDA’s, Blackberry’s and cell phones.  But after decades of continual use, fingers fore through little have seemingly been put out to pasture.  The non-thumb digits making up our extremities are a lot like Bill Clinton, once in the spotlight, today they just sort of hang around and get in the way. 

Wandering this world are everyday people possessing thumb talent that has to be seen to be believed.  Sitting in front of me on a cool spring night at Coors Field was a young lady giving a whole new meaning to “multi-tasking”.  She had a cell phone in her left hand, a hot dog in her right, a beer in the cup holder, a boy friend beside her and managed to keep all four engaged while watching the Rockies battle the Giants.  While vigorously texting with one thumb, not two but one, munching on the dog, sipping the beer all the while discussing the Rockies hapless pitching with the boy friend, this lady was quite comfortable with keeping more things going on at once than a plate spinner on a TV variety show   The boyfriend, also texting but sans sandwich, was of the old school two thumbs style, asked while not looking up from his cell, “Who you IM-ing?”  And she replied, “Sue and Charla”. 

This lady, and her magic thumb, were Instant Messaging, not one, but two, friends simultaneously while downing a dog and a brew at the ballpark.  Here she has four or five things going at once all the while Clint Hurdle can’t accomplish the most basic of tasks, that being to change pitchers as the Rox were giving up six runs in the inning.  Me?  Hey, it takes three tries and a minimum of five minutes just to post a new number in my cell phone memory let alone send a text message.  

Everywhere one goes these days folks exercising their thumbs are an ever-present part of the landscape.  Who they’re texting and how there can be that much to talk about is best left for a different discussion.