I'm sorry to any and all of you who thought you were in my top tier...it's just that there's only so much room at the top and I have priorities. See, I need friends who can do things for me, get shit done, keep me company at any time of the day. Make me meals, do my laundry, drive my car, you get the idea? And no one gets it done like Righty and Lefty.
Now before all you perverts go off the rails with my last statement, I reckon that you take a step back and really think about it. This isn't about that. This is about honest to goodness handiness and its my talents and abilities. Whose more important to you than your right and your left? They didn't come up with the phrase "Right Hand Man" for nothing.
I often marvel at my hands, hours on end. I just sit and I stare. I bring each hand really close to my face so that I can't really see much of it at all, I just feel its marvelous presence in my face. And then I stretch them forward, turn them over some, glancing from side to side. My hands are my most prettiest asset. They never have fat days and they rarely look sick. My fingers are long but not large, my nails are square but feminine. They are double jointed so my fingers take a graceful bow towards the outside of wrists when fully extended. They're really quite exquisite.
And fascinating.
They're little characters, these two. Sure they're mostly made of sugar and spice, but these things have grit, personalities, cojones! And like any set of twins, they're vastly different when closely examined.
Righty is my bitch.
She's tough and rugged. From an early age she wanted to be at the forefront of every activity, game and chore. She's the first one to jump up when I need to get something done, or to grab something off of the shelf. She's typically the more messier one, covered in paint around the finger tips, markers and pencils on her broad bottom edge. In true tomboy fashion, she prefers her nails short and NEVER painted with polish.
Righty is home to my most distinguished digit, my right ring finger. I remember when I was young and constantly writing or drawing with a pen, the knot on the inside of the finger was large enough to cause alarm. But I loved it. It was special. It was my writing and drawing bump. I called it bumpy(I'm just kidding, I'm not that crazy). A bump that in no doubt was a direct cause of Righty's rebellious nature. To see her hold a pencil is to stand in the shadow of a twisted, crooked genius. Righty grips her pencils like an inexperienced psycho wields a gun, with reckless abandon and no style. I've never met a single hand that holds a pencil the way Righty does. It's as though she was raised by a pack of wolves. Teachers marveled at her, they tried to correct her. Righty stood her ground.
And despite all her triumphs, much to her consternation, she's never won a game of arm wrestling...which she blames on my arm.
Lefty is...different.
She looks like a masterpiece. Adorned with jewels to boot. She's the only one of the two that has a constant decoration, a ring passed down from my mothers lefty. It's a family thing. She's the girlier of the two, her nails are kept long, she gets less dirty.
Devoid of strange finger bumps (due to life lived mostly as a bench warmer), she's the less scarred of the two, save for one squarish nick on the back of her hand. And she prefers to think of it as her beauty mark, because Lefty is an optimist. She knows that no one is perfect, she couldn't live up to that kind of expectation. This is because Lefty is my more humble hand. She's always been more than obliged to let Righty do her thing. She sits and watches, studying the way Righty does it. She claps with Righty over their many combined accomplishments. Lefty can do a lot, but theres a lot that she can't do. Lefty can't snap. She can't really draw either, but the kid tries. She doesn't like to hold sharp knives, and scissors are uncomfortable. Hand shakes are messy, high fives are disasters.
But I have a lot of respect for Lefty. Despite her many disabilities, she keeps on keeping on. Sometimes in this life you have to respect your limitations and embrace what little you can. Lefty is a phenomenal typer. She's great on the assist - the way her and Righty do my hair, as a team, is nothing short of an everyday miracle. What she lacks in nimbleness she makes up in strength. She's my quiet fighter.
I was once told, when I was just a young thing, that my hands look like they have never done anything. I've been called a lot of names, I've been told and have discovered a lot of disappointing things about myself, but that statement, that was a bit much. These hands? Never done anything? Are you kidding me? They never stop. You should have seen what they did last week alone. They went on an all out home improvement bender. They grouted the tile, they've never even done that before and the team work that they exhibited was nearly tear inducing. Lifetime Friday night special kind of shit. They sanded and stained shelves, they painted the living room, and at the end of the day, they even made dinner. And they never complained once. Never asked to have gloves put on them, to take a break. They never said they didn't want to do it, that they grit of the sandpaper was to much, the paint too smelly, the tack clothes too sticky, they just went for it.
I've used these two my whole life, and they're strong as ever. Years of house painting, a life time of crafting, a decade of cooking and the successful completion of a long list of duties, chores and pursuits. And they've never let me down once.
Righty, Lefty and I, we're going to do okay in this life. I just know it.
Check these puppies out!
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