The legend of Johnny Flipperhands

(NOTE: Here's our Blog Rerun for November, as we once again bring back a blog post from the past and run it because I like it, and also because it saves me the trouble of having to write a new one. This one goes way back, at least relative to the age of this blog: It was first posted on December 12, 2011. Enjoy it...and stop staring at my tiny hands.)


"Johnny hands." That's what I've always called my hands, because they look like they should be attached to a little 5-foot-tall guy named Johnny.

Seriously, I have the smallest hands. They don't look like they should belong to someone my age and body size. It's even weirder because the rest of me is fairly proportional. Well, except for my head. My head is freakishly large. I don't know why, but I've always had a large noggin. And my feet, while reasonable in length (size 10 1/2), are quadruple-E in width. And in some models of shoes, 4E isn't even wide enough.

So that's me in a nutshell: Large head, small hands, fat feet. Picture Fred Flintstone. That's me.

I have always had small hands. But now that my kids are growing up, my tiny appendages have become almost embarrassing. My daughter Melanie is 11 years old. If we hold our hands up against each other, palm to palm, my fingers are MAYBE an eighth of an inch longer than hers. And Elissa, my petite little 17-year-old who has trouble making the minimum weight to give blood, has fingers that are clearly longer than mine.

Don't even get me started on Jared, our 13-year-old man-child. He is not only taller than me, but his fingers are longer than mine by a full knuckle. It's amazing. Where did I get these little digits? My dad had short fingers, but they were at least bulky. They had some width to them. Mine? They're the fingers of a third-grader, and I'm guessing they're not growing any time soon.

Actually, I think they're shrinking. I don't remember them ever being this tiny before. I just measured the nail on my pinky finger, and it's 3/8" across. Three-eighths of an inch! There's going to come a point when my fingernails will disappear altogether -- a process I have admittedly helped along because I chew them all the time.

Sometime in the next 5-10 years, I would say, my fingers themselves will just vanish. Then I'll be left with tiny flippers and no opposable thumbs, making even the most rudimentary tasks impossible. I'll need to hire a full-time assistant just to pick things up for me.

Yes, this is the fate that awaits me. Just call me Johnny Flipperhands – Master of the Large Head, Fat Feet and Tiny Mitts.