Today I was bathing my kids when a thought occurred to me. Ha ha well, not just one thought but a few. One thing that I was thinking about was the way that I always have random questions and thoughts floating around in my brain an this blog is supposed to be where I record them for my entertainment. Back in the day I would have recorded them in a little steno notebook, but come on it is 2010! This is the year I though about as a child and was sure would never come.....if it did come then I would be super old. Here we are in March and I don't feel old and I record my thoughts by typing them out because I get too frustrated that my hands don't work to hand write things as quickly as I would like.
Seriously, if you think about the productivity that there is now that we have computers versus the turn of the 20th century it is amazing! But at the same time it is sort of negative. People used to get out and about, they used to actually meet and greet one another. You knew who your neighbor was and if you heard music coming from their flat you knew there was a happening party that you were late for. Now we don't get out much and if we do many of us are not familiar with our neighbors or visa versa. When we hear muffled music coming from the next flat or even the next house we get frustrated and mad. I get mad because I'm a mother of two young children, the music is usually offensive and the people listening to it are driving me nuts anyway. Come on people how are my kids ever going to take their nap with you banging around over there and blasting that garbage for my little angels to hear!
Woah Nelly! Sorry, I got a little diverted, actually I'm not really sorry but sometimes I like to apologize anyway. :)
Anyway the original intent of this post was to bring up a topic that I have been bugged by for a while: pruny fingers. Ok, we all know what it is like to go swimming or take a warm bath and be in the water for a while. You get out and the pads of your fingers and toes are all shriveled. Ugh! I hate the feeling of those mushy deflated pads under me as I get my clothes and towel and attempt to regain a normal feeling in them.
When I was younger I loved to take extremely hot showers. Seriously. Not good, but I loved to do it....secretly I still do but I don't get them very often due to the way that they dry my skin out and use way too much hot water and energy. So, I would take these showers and they would last for like half an hour. My skin would turn all red I would stay in there until I felt like I couldn't anymore and then I would reluctantly get out. My fingers and toes would be all pruney and I would wrap up in my towel. I was sure that someday the hot water would last longer and I might find myself with my flesh falling from my bones from being so cooked. A few too many times I didn't take clothes into the bathroom with me and I would sneak across the hall to my room to get dressed. I wasn't so good at sneaking and my family caught me and would tease me about the fact that my fingers were all pruney and my butt- yes my butt- was steaming through the towel.- Like I said super hot showers.
Why do your fingers and toes look like I dried prune when you have been in water too long? Where did my obsession with hot showers come from? Ta Da with the power of the internet I can answer the first question quickly and easily. According to the site I found by searching the phrase: why your fingers prune
Wrinkly fingers and toes, or pruning as some people call it, happen when your skin soaks up water. Our skin has a kind of waterproof oil on it called sebum. That's why water rolls right off your skin in the bath or shower. If you spend too much time in the water, the sebum washes away and guess what? You're not so waterproof anymore. Your skin soaks up the water causing it to swell in some places which makes it look wrinkly. Now, this only happens on your toes and fingers because they don't have any hair. The hair follicles on the rest of your body are able to keep making enough sebum so it doesn't wash away. The wrinkly skin isn't dangerous or permanent. After you get out of the water, it doesn't take long for your pruny fingers and toes to go back to normal.
Ahh, I feel so much more educated now, don't you? As for the second question, well, I'm not sure I think a big part of it came from too much tv and movies. I remember so many shower scenes where the person was in, came out of, or went into a bathroom full of steam. I found that the best way to steam up our family bathroom was to spend a long time running really hot water. Once I figured that out I decided that since people in the movies had steaming bathrooms I should too. Strange thought, yes. Semi unhealthy, yes. Did it make me feel cool? Extremely.
So there you have it, prune like fingers and toes explained. And you know a little more about the strange things bouncing around in my head.
As Tigger would say, "TTFN! Ta ta for now!"
