Selling Thumbs Door-to-Door With Charles Darwin

My buddy Blake.

Sometimes I think that Blake is the one person in this entire world that truly loves me. But that’s not really true. Denial is a river in Egypt; the capital of Djbouti is Djbouti; and jaded is that green sweater that makes me look like a big old ball of molting angora.

First of all, Blake is not a person, he's my dog. Second of all, he only loves me for my thumbs. If he could kill me and take my thumbs for himself, he would. I know this for a fact. He would kill to be able to open his own bag of food and clip his own nails.

This--I tell myself--this is Darwin knocking at mankind’s primordial door. “Come down from the trees,” he calls as ancient man chitters and peers down at the wicker basket over his arm. “I brought thumbs!”

Which reminds me: I had a dream about the Apocalypse once. I stood on a high, windswept rock and the horizon seemed to swallow itself whole in a very bright, convulsive flash. In the fading light I saw two Palmetto bugs sitting on the edge of a large, flat rock playing cards.

“Tell me Agosto,” said the one bug to the other. “Have you got any thumbs?”

“Go fish,” said Agosto.

And the sun snapped off like a light.