A few months ago, my beloved sock monkey socks sprung a hole in the toe area. They're not the thick and sturdy sort of sock that one can fix by darning, but I was loathe to throw them out, even so. So I kept them, in the back of my drawer, hoping to someday have a use for them.

And then I saw this task, sitting there, beckoning to me. And I thought "Hmm. No thumbs. I could probably make some gloves, or something." (I'm a bit allergic to the adhesive used on most tapes. As, I think, are most people.) And it hit me. And I had to do this task. I made "thumb pockets" using the heels of the socks. As you can see, my sewing skills aren't the best. But I thought that these "gloves" would work well for this little experiment, nonetheless. (The irony of using monkey-covered socks is not lost on me.)



So here we are. I chose to define my "day" as the 24 hour period between getting my shower on Saturday and getting my next shower, on Sunday. My thought was that socks that had been in the shower would be nasty-wet and miserable to wear, so I'd do that part last.

I got out of the shower, toweled off a bit, and donned my beautiful sock gloves. You can see how my thumb fits into them in the following picture. And the picture after that was taken mostly because Mudlock found my vanity amusing. (I painted my nails, so that 1) all these pictures of my hands might be prettier and 2) it would be easier for people less used to viewing my hands than I to parse from photographs. But mostly 1).) What you'll find amusing, if I didn't shrink the photo enough, is that I did a lousy job. :D



The first roadblock I hit was in putting on my bra. I didn't get photographic evidence, but those little hooks are freaking impossible to latch without thumbs. After a couple of minutes of trying (and then a bit longer, unhooking the one hook I'd had success with), I gave up and put on a sports bra.

Jeans were less of a problem than you'd think.

Next, we went out for some soup and shopping. Both of these things, I am pleased to report, are completely doable for less-advanced animals. They would certainly be easier with thumbs, but our animal kin are not prevented from doing them based on the thumb thing. (Maybe the not-having-currency thing. That's a separate experiment, though.)



Now, less-advanced animals have a mixed bag, when it comes to beverages. The olde style beer bottles (the only proper ones, as you may recall from elsewhere) can be accessed by a clever thumbless being, as I found, to my great joy. But, I was displeased to learn, these new-fangled twist-off doohickies are not accessible to the opposable-digitally challenged.



Less-advanced animals are capable of decorating trees, with difficulty. They are capable of lighting candles, also with difficulty (and some concern about safety). If you look, you'll see that I went through three matches. The first broke; the second put itself out. By the third, I more or less understood what I needed to do. They also--I'm very pleased to report--can type. The spacebar thing slows them down a lot, from the thumb-enabled, but they can be reasonable typists, with practice.



Mudlock and I spent several hours sorting YEARS of photos, but neither of us took a picture of that. (It would have been a bit meta, which would be neat, so I think it's a shame that we didn't.) It's hard to do without putting fingerprints on them, but it is possible.

I was very pleased--else there would have been hungry birds!--to find that it was possible for a thumbless creature to feed other thumbless creatures via a bird feeder.



And by that point, it was time for the end of my day. I hopped in the shower, only to find that showering as a thumbless creature is really frustrating(!), and Mudlock got one last picture.