2006-10-06 - 3:08 p.m.

When I was in 5th grade, one of the girls-who-were-quickly-becoming-girls told us that "If you can wrap your thumb and index finger around your wrist, then you're thin."

I was able to do it, but just barely. The largest girl in the class couldn't do it. She was also a liar, and not a very good one, so she wrapped her thumb and middle finger around her wrist and tried to show it to people and say "See? See? I'm skinny too."

Ever since that day, I've developed a habit of wrapping my fingers around my wrists. It's easier to do it with my right wrist. There was a short while during undergrad that I was just barely unable to do it and it always made me self-conscious.

But now I can do it easily with both wrists. I thought I should mark the occasion with an entry. Part of me thinks that obsessive wrist-hugging has caused my fingers to stretch and my wrists to get smaller.

A Google search reveals that athletes (I don't know if it's for male and female) use an informal wrist test to see whether or not they are big-boned. The practice doesn't appear to be widespread. I also found a 15 yr old girl with poor spelling who was worried about her "wait" and does the wrist thing as well. I imagine girls have passed down this false knowledge of wrist-to-weight ratio throughout the years, like hand clapping games and "girl scout, you're out" rhymes that never seem to fade from playgrounds.

Two conclusions:

1. I won't think "kids are growing up too fast" until they stop playing those games and the practice is lost.

2. Sometimes I think I should have been home-schooled until high school. Most of my socialization memories from grade school are pretty dumb and useless.