Butterfingers

My fingers turn to butter, but they taste of nicotine, garlic, and soap when I bite my nails. These butterfingers encourage cups to slip, saucers to fly off, run out of energy, stall, and crash to the kitchen floor where they lie in broken pieces, resting in peace, waiting to be picked up, one by one, and buried in the waste bin.

Arthritic fingers, grown clumsy now, struggle with bottle tops and glass containers screwed up so tight they refuse to open, even when soaked under the hot tap. I stick those jars in door jambs, lid first, closing the door with one hand, and twisting the jar with the other. Sometimes it slips and crashes to the floor, often with a portion of the contents spilling out.

I hate layer after layer of plastic wrapping. Flagrant in its defiance, it wages its guerrilla war against these ageing, uncoordinated fingers. I am often forced to use a knife, but a knife can slip or twist so easily. Occasionally, blunt, it will not even penetrate indomitable, multi-folded Saran wrap. So many slips between plate, teeth, and lips. Multiple precious items drop to the floor.

I cannot always bend to pick them up, and I cannot easily grasp them, not even with my new mechanical claw.