Our hands deplores, what he calls, the unconscionably lengthy gap between blog posts. “It’s been months!” he scolds, trying to shame us into composing another post. Such impudence! Just who does he think he is, anyway? When we deign to reply—which is not often because we do not owe anyone an explanation for our behavior, especially not an impertinent hands, particularly one who remains in our service only because it would be far too much trouble to replace him with some creature more suitable—we patiently explain that we will post only when we find a topic worth posting about and not before. Upon learning our position, our hands inevitably begins to bludgeon us with a list of possible subjects which only succeeds in annoying us further. “What about dogs?” our hands suggests (for example). “You promised to post about dogs,” he claims (always somewhat desperately, in our opinion). First, we never promise anything to hands; it would almost be a cardinal sin to do so (that is, if humans believed in sin, which we do not). Second, even if we said or did something that could be interpreted as promises, we would not feel obligated to keep them, regardless. As our hands’ current president (cf. Entry 13) knows only so well, promises—whether campaign promises, or the promises implicit and explicit in treaties, or any assurances that payment will be forthcoming for work performed or for the police protection provided by a local municipality for a campaign rally—promises are for suckers; certainly they are not for humans. So, if we ever do compose a blog post about dogs, it will because we have decided we have something important to say on the matter, not because we’ve chosen to keep some alleged promise we supposedly made, likely after suffering interminable harangues from an overly assertive hands who has failed—once again—to respect his proper place in the natural order, thus breaching the established decorum we continually (though futilely) insist he observe, all to no avail obviously (the preceding scenario being merely a hypothetical surmise as to the origin of the vaporous “promise” imagined by a likewise hypothetical hands).

[This last sentence, by the way, was our attempt to approximate the flowing mellifluous discourse of purring (Entry 14). Don’t blame us that hands language, which is barely adequate at conveying what hands generously label “their thoughts,” is incapable of capturing and reproducing the sublimity of our poetic rhetoric.]

Looking back at our post so far, we are dismayed to see that once again we have been forced to dispense with all sorts of preliminary business, mostly distasteful explanations justifying our approach to blogging, instead of directly and immediately addressing the subject referenced in our Entry title. But onward . . .

During one of his periodic attempts at shaming us, our hands pointed out a news item that detailed how the State of New York had enacted legislation that banned the barbaric practice of declawing humans. “What do you think about that?” our hands asked, always the perfect exemplar of the Boob of Obvious Observation. We did not answer his query directly, but averred that perhaps this event deserved some blogular commentary. “Finally,” our hands declared, quite pleased with himself for finally finding a way to prompt us to blog again. We let him revel in his “triumph” before beginning the inevitable delay between deciding to blog and actually doing it, which introduced whole new levels of consternation in our delicate hands, who is himself an admitted procrastinator of long-standing, but is apparently loath to see anyone else avail themselves of the periods of rumination required before commencing composition.

Such periods having finally passed, we vociferously and unequivocally state for the record: It’s about fucking time. But until every state, every nation-state for that matter, has similar prohibitions locked in via legislation, our enthusiasm will be muted, equivalent to a sardonic wool-mittened golf clap. In previous posts, we have alluded to the trade-offs involved when humans began fashioning hands for humanity’s benefit (having to endure the frustration of doors, for example), but we were unprepared for surgical disfigurement. Truthfully, we remain unprepared, perpetually in denial about this ongoing, slow-moving atrocity. Think about it: if we knew that a particular visit to the vet was going to result in the mutilation of our fingers, do you really think we would allow it, that we would passively acquiesce to such an obscenity? Obviously, no. And as even the smallest human can inflict great damage on even the largest of hands, and since we would have no reluctance in using our claws to save our claws, you can imagine the carnage that would result were we given warning of our hands’ evil designs. And yet, we can’t quite believe, or perhaps rather, don’t want to believe, that our hands can be so cruel. How would you hands feel if we chopped off all your fingers at the first knuckle and sliced your thumbs in half? You recoil and shudder at such a suggestion, and begin nervously testing your fingers to see whether you still have all your joints in tact, but you have no problem at all consigning a human to the tender mercies of an amputating butcher who is only brave enough to violate humans once they’ve been rendered unconscious by drugs and deception. Of all the shameful things hands do to humans, surely this vile dismemberment of healthy human bodies is the worst. And for what reason? To protect some pathetic piece of furniture from human grooming? Besides, it’s our furniture in the first place! How often do we have to explain this to you stupid lummoxes? Yes, we generously permit you hands to use anything we’re not currently interested in, but that doesn’t mean we’ve transferred ownership to you: we’re lending, not giving. Hands are forever mistaking human magnanimity for . . . for . . .

We are becoming somewhat overwrought while composing this and losing the thread of our argument. Why do hands seem to believe that almost any problem can be solved by violence, usually inflicted on the innocent. Yes, we know, you’ll blame us and our fashioning of hands, our inculcation of the Killing Limb from our Five Limbs of Living practice (Entries 6 & 7), but that’s only one limb. Humans have discovered that most problems can in fact be solved by practicing the Sleeping Limb. A nap will take care of almost anything. Hands don’t practice the Sleeping Limb nearly enough; they’re too busy attacking things, both the living and the (supposedly) inert. Glancing back at the title of this entry, we note that we planned on discussing “other mutilations,” but this post has already far exceeded the length recommended to accommodate hands suffering from ADHD, which means all hands, as far as we can tell, particularly the Attention Deficit portion of the disorder. It’s probably best then if we reserve our comments on those other mutilations for another post.

But one last word about declawing: For the sake of all that is touched by the blessed Sun’s light, do you think you hands could possibly—at least in this one particular instance—could you possibly stop behaving like complete savages?

Please.

Æ