Fingers

 

 

Naturally, as a child I thought the world was a cruel and unfair place to live, which of course it is.

And naturally, I placed the blame solely on my Mother, therefore coming to the conclusion that most children make at some point in their evolution, or another, which is that I must have been adopted. This made it possible to cling to the fantasy that one day my real Mother would come and take me away from all that was evil, and buy me all the ice cream, bubble gum and comic books a girl could ever want.

 

“Sooooo…”

My mother taunted me,

“What’s your realmother’s name?”

 

I’m not sure where this came from exactly but I do remember quite confidently announcing, almost defiantly,

“FINGER!”

You know how when you’re little and you lie to somebody and it’s too embarrassing to back pedal, and once you realize that there is just no going back, you just kind of throw everything you’ve got into the lie until you are so passionate about it that you eventually almost start to convince your own self that what you are saying is true? Well, I guess that’s pretty much where I was at, because I was heartbroken that not only did nobody believe me, they were even mocking me. This made me horribly homesick and I began to long desperately for my realmother… Finger.

 

I was bouncing from couch to chair and back, in my wonder woman underoos and a pair of rubber boots, watching a baseball game on our tiny black and white TV, when suddenly, through the blabbering commentary of the game…

 “Rollie Fingers is up and he’s…!”

“See!!!!!!! I shouted gleefully, ” I told you my mom was real!!”

I think it was at this point that my mother stopped ridiculing me and started worrying about me instead.