It isn’t the first thing you notice about me, or even the second or third. You might not even notice until I proudly point it out to you: I have a club thumb. Because this clubbed thumb has caused me zero issues in life I embrace it and celebrate it and show it off at parties like some show off their double-jointedness. Recently someone told me that Meagan Fox has club thumbs too and I hoped that she was as proud of her weird digit as I had grown to be of mine.
To be medical about it, the correct term for my thumb is Brachydactyly type D and roughly 2% of the population have this kind of shortened thumb. The dinosaur sounding name isn’t as fun as some of the other names people have used. Throughout history they have been called stub thumbs, potter thumbs, murderer thumbs, hammer thumbs. While looking up the correct spelling of the Brachy… word up there I saw someone call it a “toe thumb” and that is now my new favorite. A lot of people with this will have two shorties, but I have one short and one regular – which really makes it fun to line them up.
This isn’t the only about me that makes me special, but it is a weird quirk that I embrace. We all have them.
I want to know what is special and quirky about you?
I promise I won’t think it is weird. Share and tell in the comments.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
OMG, I totally have a friend with the same thing!!! Oh wait. It’s you.
I can make my eyes have a ping pong match?
I totally have these shorty thumbs! I never knew there was a technical term for it!!! Also mine are double-jointed and sort of bend backwards…I know, WWP….maybe I’ll have to take a picture of them and put it on my blog, while we’re in the business of exposing our eccentricities
I have toe-thumbs too!!!! We should start a club!! I did research and I read somewhere it’s a trait that was prominant in German royalty.
I have big toes that are so effed up that they curve up at the end like a Dutch wooden shoe. This has caused me so many toe / toenail problems that the big toenails had to come off, for good. So I don’t join in any reindeer game type of pedicure parties, but I don’t mind. When something causes so much trouble that you have it removed, well, you don’t miss it too much.
I have been thinking a lot about how to help my son know that he is special just because he IS. This is something I miss for myself, since I seem to think I can only be special by doing / accomplishing, and that seems never to be enough. Not to get all serious up in here when you’re talking about weird thumbs. Nevertheless … I love to notice what is special about my son, but I also hope to teach him that his specialness is just… him. And I’m happy he didn’t get my weird-ass toes.
Another toe thumber here
I don’t have a toe thumb but I do have a flat nail on my thumb. I thought it was only me by my brother son also has it. most people have a curve to there nail we on my right thumb it has the slight curve and and then it flattens out and then curves again
I put on my deodorant with one hand. (So I end up looking like a monkey). B gives me a hard time about it, but I think its effective.
Also, when cutting something with a fork and knife, I put the knife in my non-dominant hand and keep the fork in my dominant one (my right one). I was told this is typical in Great Britain….but not so much here in the USA.
I am not particularly special, but I am definitely quirky. It’s all personality, though.
It’s funny you should mention toe thumbs…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2068034/James-Byrne-thumb-replaced-big-toe-surgeons.html
I have a TON of beauty marks all over!
my two aunts have the toe-thumbs! (my mom, their sister, does not.)
i have a good one! technically, pili annulati. Google Image has some good examples. It was discovered when I was 2-ish. It should be genetic; no one I know has it, including my child. It is not on any hair on my body except my head. When I was 20, a doc at the student health center discovered it while treating me for head lice (the near-unavoidable danger of student-teaching in an elementary school) and brought it to the big hospital to study. I was then invited to be a specimen in the Harvard Medical School dermatology convention, which I did and which was a fun day, hanging out in a room with my mom while groups of docs streamed in and poked through my hair with tongue depressors, while we listened to them commenting about the case next door (“boggy scalp.” ew.)
Anyway. I am always a big hit when I go to a new hair salon. Otherwise, I am unaffected.
I have a single palmar crease or “simian crease” on my right hand. I had hoped that one of my kids would have one too, as I share this with my dad, but nope. Oh well.
The toes that would be my ring-toes (the piggy that had none) are curved underneath my middle toes. They are sorta smooshed and flattened. I also have almost non-existent toenails on most of my toes.
I eat potatoes and like dogs more than people. I also wear a D width shoe. Barney Rubble Feet, really.
I have an outtie belly button.
You know how people can crack their knuckles? Well, I can crack my wrists and my knees. My left wrist is the best (gymnastics injury) and I really enjoy freaking people out. Apparently it sounds all gross.
My little toes are super curled under and I have teeny tiny toenails on those toes. And then my middle toes are longer than my big toes, which can make wearing shoes uncomfortable. And I’m kind of claustrophobic, so it’s almost impossible for me to sleep with anything covering my feet. And when I’m on a long car trip, I have to take my shoes off or I start going slightly nutso.
I am cross eyed. I was born with it and even though I had surgery as a kid, I can cross my eyes on demand. It’s great.
I also have toes the half curl under each other.
Wow!! I think this post is a good source of info. i really like the way you expressed!
I am spotted all over my torso with beauty marks and freckles, like a cheetah. I would like them more if they didn’t have to be constantly monitored for changes.
I can squirt water from under my tongue by lifting it. It shoots out like snake venom, about 3 ft. Not a trick for polite company but mighty fun (except when it happens by accident!). I think it’s caused by a calcium stone partially blocking one of my saliva ducts.
I can crack my sacrum, but no other part of my body because the sound freaks me out.
Also, I have some interesting battle scars that are good conversation-starters.
My sister actually had the beginnings of a second thumb growing out of the side of her right thumb. It was surgically removed when she was a baby. My mother always thought she & I knew that; until we were teenagers, we always just thought she was born with a misshaped thumb. Her thumb looks a little like yours, short & stubby, but it’s also flat & wide.
I have very wide feet, & very thick hair. I don’t think I’ve ever had a hairdresser touch my hair without commenting on it.
I have read a lot of the comments but i like the one from Dresden. Such a great attitude. I had never read about this condition. I have a niece and her daughter, my great-niece, that have this type of thumb. People that have made ugly comments, especially those about Megan Fox, have a much bigger problem, they have an ugly heart. Sad to say, that is a much more dibilatating condition to have in life.