My left hand
When appendages take over
BY KRIS FRIESWICK
Never have I been so keenly aware of the presence of my left hand. Up until a
couple of months ago, my left hand was just a hand like any other hand. It was
the mirror image, and slightly-less-utilized counterpart, of my right hand. But
due to recent events, my left hand now seems to have its own life, much like
the hand that tried to kill its former owner in Evil Dead 2. It does
what it wants. It has its own identity. It has its own likes, dislikes, and
moods. It must be treated with kid gloves and watched constantly.
I blame all this on the fact that on August 24, my boyfriend placed a very
beautiful diamond engagement ring on that hand. I have never worn jewelry on my
left hand before, and I've never had any occasion to watch where the hand went,
or what it banged into, or whether it was properly manicured and moisturized.
Suddenly, I am keenly aware of that hand and every bump, crunch, or nick it
receives. In the past eight weeks, I have been repeatedly surprised by how
little I know about an appendage that I've had in my possession for more than
three decades.
I quickly learned that this hand tends to flail about when not closely attended
to. It makes overly grand gestures as I speak, and as a result, it is prone to
slamming into things. And judging by the two long scratches that appeared on
the underside of the ring after only three days, the hand comes in contact with
a lot of very rough, hard surfaces, the locations of which are still a mystery
to me. But the hand knows where they are -- and has returned to visit them
several times since the initial scratches were first discovered.
My left hand tends to swell considerably between the hours of 11 p.m.,
when I go to bed, and 6:30 a.m., when I get up for work, making removal of
the ring pre-shower next to impossible without some kind of lubrication. Then
the hand shrinks considerably between 1 and 6 p.m., and the ring slides
around and bangs into my computer keys as I type. One alcoholic beverage and I
can pretty much forget about taking the ring off at all. Too many glasses of
water and the hand threatens to jettison the ring, entirely unannounced.
And the left hand is not only fickle, but utterly spoiled. The first thing
everyone wants to see these days is the damn hand. It's gotten so used to all
the attention that it has taken to reflexively sticking itself out for
inspection whenever we encounter friends we haven't seen recently. In fact, my
left hand has begun expecting to be the center of the universe. My friends are
not helping matters by acceding to its greedy, self-centered demands. "Look at
me! Look at me!" it seems to scream, and my friends, unaware of the havoc they
are wreaking, do its bidding.
The hand has even become a distraction to me. I'll be driving along, minding my
own business, when suddenly it starts posing, the ring starts flashing, I get
mesmerized, and the next thing I know, I'm plowing through a red light.
Most disturbing of all, the hand is jealous. It has a keen interest in other
women's left hands, a subject in which I've never had more than a passing
interest. But now, the hand wants to see what all the other hands are wearing.
It will go so far out of its way to get a better look at another hand that I am
occasionally forced to invade the personal space of another woman -- a complete
stranger -- to achieve the view. Naturally, the hand makes sure to point out
which other left hands have bigger rings, and smaller rings, and rings that
could not possibly be of the same quality, and rings that bear a resemblance to
its own, and rings that have an interesting design. (This inevitably leads, for
reasons I don't understand, to a close examination of the shoes of the woman in
question.) It's all highly distasteful, but the hand is like that. It has never
heard of decorum. It only thinks about itself.
I've briefly considered simply moving the ring to my right hand, which has
traditionally been a better-behaved and predictable appendage. The right hand
is talented, considerate of others, and doesn't flop around when I take my eyes
off it for a second. It's always where it's supposed to be, and it doesn't
wander off. But social mores dictate that the left hand gets the ring, and so
it appears I am stuck with the current state of affairs.
I'm hoping that this situation resolves itself soon. I've ridden the bus right
past my stop several times in the past month while indulging the hand in its
clandestine viewing of the other hands on board. Really, though, it's my own
fault. I've been giving in to the hand because it's so rarely ever gotten to be
in the limelight. But this is getting ridiculous. If things don't change soon,
I might start thinking that the guy in Evil Dead 2 -- who cut off his
hand with a chain saw -- had the right idea.
Kris Frieswick and both of her hands can be reached at k.frieswick@verizon.net.
Issue Date: October 18 - 24, 2002
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