NaNa No Fingers

I am quite serious when I tell you that my grandmother is missing two fingers on her left hand. The last two fingers to be precise-- the pinky and ring-fingers. Yup, it's true, she is a two-finger amputee.

The story goes something like this.... when my father was a small child, his mother used to work at a potato-chip factory. Well, one day while she was running the potatoes through the potato-chip-slicing-machine-thing she lost concentration for a split-second-- the machine mistook her hand for a potato and, before she knew it, the machine had hacked two of her lady-digits off. As she screamed in pain, they disappeared down the conveyor-belt. (side-note... when the family returned home from the hospital after this unfortunate event, my dad accidentally slammed the car-door on her already maimed hand. hahaho!) Of course they must have discarded that batch of potato-chips but I've always imagined that some lucky family out there got a little surprise when they opened up their bag of potato-chips at some family picnic or something.

Believe you me; The fact that my grandmother is missing two of her fingers has been a major source of personal fascination, fear, and disgust for a number of years. How could it not? Whenever I visit her I feel like I'm in a fuckin' John Waters or David Lynch film.

As a child I used to daydream a lot and you can imagine what a three-fingered granny does for one's imagination.

I'd imagine her flipping people off and giving the "ok" signal with her lame hand-- both of which she could do perfectly because it was the last two fingers that she lost on her hand-- the thumb, index, and middle finger remained in tact bee-yatches. I'd imagine her playing a guitar or flute. I'd imagine her playing cat's cradle. I'd imagine her sipping tea. I'd imagine her doing numerous things that I will not soil your mind with at this time. Oh, I actually thumb wrestled her once. that was odd.

Unfortunately, I always had trouble eating her food though. Although she was an excellent cook I would imagine her little nubs touching/handling/caressing my unprepared meal and, without fail, I would lose my appetite.

by the by-- we've come a long way, haven't we? where were these suckers when my nana got her little vienna-sausages chopped off?