Sunday 14 October 2007

The Finger

Someone showed me the finger today. In Glasgow! Of all places!

Imagine my surprise.

There was a man, he tripped, I laughed, he turned round and up went his middle finger. Like it was my fault he was a clumsy eejit.

Everyone else saw the crack in the pavement and walked over it. The man with the white stick tapped it and walked around it. OK I'll come clean there was no blind man but you get my point. Everyone else saw the danger, took steps to avoid it but not this joker. He trips, turns round and goes FUCK YOU, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE LAUGHING AT!

What happened to humour? People used to see the funny side when they tripped. When I was a a kid if you tripped, you laughed at yourself. You'd replay the incident, and laugh while everybody else laughed. Now people can't take a joke any more. Its no more 'look at me', now its 'how dare you laugh at me, look at my finger!'

Truth is at first I felt bad for laughing. It wasn't like a belly laugh, it was more an uncomfortable snigger that I did try to hold in. After seeing the finger though I was glad I laughed at the tosser.

But it struck me afterwards, who invented the finger? How come we know who invented the television but we don't know the name of the person who first used their middle digit to show their displeasure. And how come it took off? Did they try other things first? Was it like a trial and error approach to find some that that was universally approved by the masses?

And while we are it - who invented the kiss? Were they in any way related to the person who saw an egg come out of a hen's bum and thought I'm going to eat one of those? How come we don't know these peoples names? Surely these people have had much more influence on human progress than the first people to climb Everest or reach the South Pole......

7 comments:

Girl said...

You went from a kiss to a hen's bum?!?

*gag*

I may never kiss again.

(please don't let it be true, please don't let it be true...)

Scotsman said...

And to think of all things I could have said in this post that could have been engineered to get such a response. I was being good on this occasion.

I even went from the kiss to the hen's bum and not the other way around. I'm even sure whoever it was that tried the egg first waited for time to do its thing and didn't take matters into their own hands by trying to suck the egg out with force? Actually on that point, who can tell. Men can do some very strange things.

Don't worry though, if I'm ever in a situation where I make eggs for your breakfast I won't expect a kiss for my trouble.

Nicole said...

I don't think anyone invented either...I think they just came about because of primal urges!

Have you not ever seen someone and just had the urge to grab them and plant your lips on theirs??? ( Of course there is a difference between urge and actually acting out on the urge!!! lol)

Same with the finger. In some cases, we are not able to shout out a fuck you, so of course it would be natural to have the urge to gesture it. Ever see the TV show FRIENDS? 2 of the characters are siblings and they made up their own actions with their hands so that their "parents" wouldn't be on to them.

ps. when I got to the hen's bum, I got a good chuckle! :)

Girl said...

Eeee. Sucking the egg out...ergh...

*snicker*


(Love the sunset over the island pic that is up today)

Mentok said...

You're a fellow after my own heart with these questions.

I've often wondered about such things myself. For example, bananas. Natural bananas were full of seeds and inedible. About 10,000 years ago, humans selectively bred them to make them edible.

It must have taken generations. What ever would have possessed cave men to waste their time trying to make inedible food edible instead of hunting/gathering already-edible food? How could they even have known it was going to work?

Our capacity for goofy, obsessive hobbies appears endless.

Or how about cow's milk? "Oooh, yeah, I can't wait to get my hands on some cow titties. In fact, I might even suck on one. Mmmm!" That was some kinda messed up cave man.

(sorry to just show up abruptly. I read pogoagogo, as does justagirl, so that's the lineage.)

Mentok said...

P.S. At the risk of sounding like Cliff Claven from Cheers, I have answers to your rhetorical questions.

1. The middle finger gesture was developed by the Romans. Originally, the finger was displayed horizontal and wiggled to make it look phallic.

2. Most Great Apes kiss. It's believed to be an evolution of the mutual grooming process which is common to all social mammals.

(... To my own amazement, I actually knew those things off the top of my head; I didn't Google them. ;-)

Scotsman said...

Just be glad I didn't go into words, religion or politics we could have been there all day with endless but ultimately useless questions.

I'm a landscaper by trade and shamefully I had no idea that the first banana plants beared inedible fruit full of seed. I guess I never thought about it much and just assumed they seed was in the flower. Pathetic really.
As for kissing I suppose I knew that really, I've watched far too many David Attenborough shows not to know. The Roman thing though I have to admit again to not knowing but it does make sense now that you have enlightened me. Italians by nature are very vocal with their hands.

Thanks for coming by, always good to see new people drop by for no reason.