The average human being is a pretty incredible creature. Apparently, we consist of some 100 trillion cells (what anorak sat and counted?), we can distinguish tens of thousands of scents, a million colours and store 1000 terabytes of memories. Apart from teeth, we repair and regenerate the cells in our bodies so that every ten years we are physically a new person. Not bad for a species that is 70% water and shares 50% of its DNA with bananas, 60% with chickens, 84% with dogs and 96% with chimps. It is those minuscule differences that make us what we are. I read somewhere that if the human genome was written down, it would fill nearly 300,000 pages and only the last couple of hundred would contain the parts that make us the individuals we are. Unless you come from Kentucky where everyone has the same DNA.
We have evolved as bipeds and for humans to be able to walk upright, we do not have opposable big toes. This in turn means that our feet are arched and this enables us to walk the way we do. We continue to evolve and toes are as good a place to talk about as any. As a rule, each human has 5 toes on each foot. The big toe and the next 3 along do whatever they do, but the human little toe is evolving faster than they are. It is becoming increasingly sensitive to the extent that it has now developed into a sensor of hard objects in low light environments. It finds these hard objects by hitting them and then informs you that it has found the armchair/bed leg/door frame by sending a wave of excruciating pain to your brain. Forget child birth. Forget kidney stones. Forget a kick in the ‘nads. This fuckin’ hurts! So much so that it is impossible for the human who has recently rediscovered the whereabouts of the door frame that’s been in the same place for centuries, to swear. Instead, all that can be managed is;
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah (all very quietly because it’s 3 o’clock in the bloody morning and you don’t want to wake everyone up) ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah (until eventually) ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuck it! You manage to swear.
How do I know this? I know this because last night, at 3 o’clock in the bloody morning, I discovered where the door frame to the toilet is courtesy of that wonderful appendage, my little toe.
Have a wonderful day.
More Dick soon.
With apologies to the inhabitants of Kentucky who, I am sure, are very nice people all with their own unique DNA but I couldn’t find a picture for Louisiana.
I was reading this with great interest, from an anthropological point of view, until the conclusion, and then I laughed out loud.
Broke my little toe a couple of years ago, when it decided to seek out the wooden leg on my armchair.
Hope you’re not in too much pain Mr D.
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At the time funny it was not but time healed my hurt toe and a couple of minutes later I was fine if slightly ticked off. So glad it made you laugh. Xxx
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Yes, that expresses it exquisitely. 🙂
Glad your toe feels better now.
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My toe is fully recovered now thank you. Not the first time it’s happened and regretfully, probably not the last!
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And why is it when you injure something, such as your toe, you keep hitting the injured spot over and over. What’s that all about?
Great post – are we really genetically similar to bananas?
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Apparently we are. We also share 70% of our DNA with our favourite creatures, slugs! All living things including plants evolved from a single celled organism that lived some 3 – 4 billion years ago known as the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). So plenty of DNA is shared. It’s more complex than that but it’s the tiny differences in our DNA that make us different from other creatures such as primates and even tinier differences that make each human being different from all the other humans.
Glad you like it and glad to hear from you again. I hope you are well and I’m about to read your latest post to see whats what.
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It’s nice to see you too. Are we going to try the slug repellent this year?
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LOL and ouch! A painfully astute observation of the evolution of little toes. Mine have bumped into hard objects more times than I can count!!
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