Unusual Hands
On a recent trip to Florida I decided to enjoy the warm weather by doing some deep sea fishing on a charter boat. While waiting for the boat to depart I did some people watching, as the dock was a popular strolling area for tourists. Being an admirer of ladies' hands in general, but particularly those with certain unique features (e.g., a non-standard number of fingers or an anomalous shape or form), I always pay close attention to this particular part of the female anatomy. It was at this point that I noticed a young, dark-haired lady approaching my end of the dock.

While she was fairly ordinary looking otherwise, something odd struck me about the way she was holding her camera in her right hand. She was carrying the camera with the front side and lens facing down toward the ground. Her thumb, which was placed on the backside of the camera was white-knuckled, presumably since she was gripping it so tightly. I thought this strange since normally one's palm and fingers would support the camera's weight from underneath without requiring such a strong grip.

As the young lady came closer, it seemed as though she were grasping the camera with a claw, rather than a hand, though I could not figure out why at first since her fingers were not yet fully visible. As she came underneath the boat it became obvious that her right hand, though still partially concealed by the camera, was malformed. There seemed to be an abnormally wide space separating the base of her thumb from the base of her first finger, which seemed bony and placed at an odd angle to the opposing thumb.

In fact, it appeared that this was her only finger, thereby accounting for the tight grip on the camera. Just as I was marveling at this wonderful oddity, the young lady turned around and began walking towards an information booth adjacent to my boat, revealing her left hand - also malformed. Unlike her right hand the left was comprised of two long fingers, a narrow palm, and an opposing thumb.

She was in front of the boat, gripping her camera in her right hand and now grasping an information brochure in her three-fingered left hand. I casually watched as the woman finished browsing her brochure, placed it in her purse, and continued down the dock, at one point brushing back her hair with her unusual left hand.