Years ago, when my wife and I first lived together, our house was in regular need of maintenance. One recurring issue we had was with the electrics. We found a great local electrician who was reliable and did the job without charging an arm and a leg.
One day, as he worked, I remarked to my wife how massive his thumbs were on both hands, noting how disproportionally large they were relative to his other digits. They weren’t just long, they were huge and bony, and hung from the side of his hands like extra limbs.
As often happens in these types of situations, the name stuck. Big Thumbs became our go-to for all electrical problems. On one occasion, he received an electric shock from our faulty oven. I stood behind him when he was zapped and saw bright blue flashes of sparks like the oven was the Emperor, and he was Luke Skywalker (had the Jedi been blessed with enormous thumbs). A human with normal-sized thumbs would’ve surely been a goner, I thought. But this man, with his superhuman opposable digits, was able to withstand the energy like it was a bit of static from a door handle.
A while later, a friend was looking for a trusted electrician for a job in her house. We gave her the number of our guy and sent it through with high praise. This guy has not let us down once.
She came back to us a couple of days later and said his work was great, but the guy was a little strange. Specifically, each interaction she had with him felt weird. He would look at her confused. By this point we knew him very well, so we suggested she talk to him about it, ask him why the awkwardness?
“I’ve done that,” she replied. “I said, Big Thumbs, is everything alright? I’m sensing weird energy…”
Big Thumbs? That is when the penny dropped. The mobile phone contact details my wife had for him – and had sent to our friend – listed his name as Big Thumbs. Our friend thought that was his work name, so she used it repeatedly, and the poor guy had no idea why. We explained our faux pas to her, to a mixture of laughter and embarrassment. She didn’t explain to him why she’d been calling him Big Thumbs, but she did get his real name and started calling him that instead.
To this day, he remains a reliable and trusted service provider and expert on all things electrical (for her and for us).
In and amongst my various blog topics, why exactly did I tell you this story? Because, honestly, this week has been an editorial frenzy – proofreading my typeset first book and editing the second. Quite frankly, it’s nice to focus on something a bit different and a bit sillier.
Happy April Fool’s Day!
