Because I'd still have eight

After practically shearing off a pinky toe for the umpteenth time by clipping it on a table leg, I'm more and more curious about whether or not there are any real problems with having them removed. I wish I kidding, but sometimes my brain just goes into these places.

As far as I can tell, losing it wouldn't do any real harm. I'm one of those people with really wide feet, but not equally long (know what I mean, nudge nudge) so it would open up my shoe options. And then the really is the shearing off factor -- if I don't do it, chances are chance will do it for me. A few examples:

  • Men are supposed to be better at this whole spatial navigation thing, at least that was the line, but I apparently really suck at it. I'll be turning the corner through a door, and no part of me hits anything except for the damn outside edge of my foot. There are a few chairs, and one bed, where this is particularly bad. I've come to the conclusion that I don't do corners well at all.
  • I used to do Aikido fairly heavily... and not the 'fruity' variants which are basically just wide-circle tai-chi. There is no easier way to break a pinky toe (or any toe) than with a snap-kick. Different kicks require your toes to be in different positions, and it's easy to get them confused, and easy to just go in at the wrong angle. It will ruin your damn day.
  • It's not like I was raised in the depression, but I figure I burn enough electricity through my other appliances that if I don't need a light on, and I know where I'm going and know the layout of where I am, there's no point to it. Plus, it helps me keep my CTR-vision. This generally works fine, unless someone has left a chair out ever so much, and then I'm caught swearing. And no, I don't know how I got it into my head that echo-location was a reasonable way for a human to get around.

Now, even if there is some sort of value derived from the pinky toe in terms of balance, etc. I'd have to assume losing it isn't akin to losing your inner ear or large toes, and it's not as though I'm running through the trees much. I'm looking at it, and from an evolutionary standpoint, it doesn't seem to be doing so well compared to the others.

I don't think I'm alone in my whimsical question of whether removing them should be akin to having your appendix removed, as the Pinky Toe Haiku so eloquently sums up:

Hark, wee pinky toe
Unnoticed, tiny, deformed
What is your purpose?

I also don't understand why -- for something so seemingly insignificant -- nature has set it up to be so incredibly painful if you harm it. Breaking your pinky toe is much more painful than your finger, and even just jamming it is much more painful than jamming a finger. Basically, nothing about the damn thing adds up and my own body seems confused about it.

I've been googling a lot of medical things lately (Hepatitis-C for one, because a reader turned me onto it and it's something I'm fairly ignorant about, and polio and iron lungs being the others) and this is an area I've come up fairly short on. The great thing about google is that -- at least for something like Hepatitis-C -- while it may not have all the info you're after, it can connect you to the support groups which are treasure troves of real-world issues.

There apparently isn't anything like that for those encumbered by their pinky toes, although I did find a page on losing your toes to diabetes that made me go with a granola bar for lunch, and I learned there are new cosmetic procedures to shape your ass via sandblasting. I thought I'd hit the jackpot when I found a page of what looked to be about those who had had toes amputated, but that was short lived.

I don't don't know what the hell that page is about, but it takes one hard left turn into aberrant behavior that had me in back-away-slowly-and-don't-make-eye-contact-mode, and there aren't many sites that have really accomplished that.

I'm laying off the medical googling for awhile, but it'd still be nice to have a real answer on it some day. I did bring it up with a doctor once on a lark, but that didn't get very far. I probably didn't help my cause by also mentioning having some protective metal plate installed -- hey, it works for heads.

Human-Computer-Interface (HIC) design says the computer should adapt to how I do things, not the other way around, so why shouldn't my body work the same way?

yummy alcohol posted button Posted by drunkenbatman
    March 30, 2005, at 06:30 PM


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