There Must Be Better Uses For Our Opposable Thumbs

It's probably just a sign of aging, but we humans are wasting a perfectly good digit. Apes and Chimps use their opposable thumbs and toes to swing from trees, gathering food and fleeing predators. We on the other hand are wasting our assets frivolously.

A recent weekend in Chicago resulted in several hours of waiting at Midway. As each flight arrived I watched an endless stream of deplaning passengers march out of the jetway, head down, busily texting. Thumbs ablaze, urgent texts being fired off into cyberspace. Only a few old dinosaurers with cellphones up to their ears and virtually no one content to just think and walk.

Besides the likely early onset of arthritis of the thumbs, eye strain due to small lettering on screen, and testicular cancer from keeping pulsating PDAs in front pant pockets, texters are adding to the world's droneness. How often does a person need to check email, see if they have any new friends on Facebook, or tweet about nothing?

A good use of time and thumbs would be in grasping a book. At a weekend performance of Jersey Boys, fully half of the audience, before the start of the show, was busily texting. Not reading the playbill and learning about the plot and the actors experiences, but using those thumbs to twitter away. Amazing!

Well I admit that I'm a really old dinosauer as not only do I not text, I don't like my cellphone either. But, since I'm not up-to-date on communications, I get to save the $50 a month cost of phone internet access charges! I'll gladly use that $50 per month and my opposable thumbs to hoist a cocktail glass of single malt. After a few of those I can communicate better than any texter.