The International Brotherhood of Nerve Elves, Local 112.

Today my finger hurts. It started hurting yesterday, at supper time, as I was making French fries[1]. With an unexplained suddenness, the middle finger of my right hand, just off to the right side of the tip, started hurting. And, no, I did not stick it in the boiling oil. At first, I thought I had a sliver. In German, I would say I had a shpeka, or maybe a shpika. I don’t know. One is a sliver, the other is a granary. I am quite sure I didn’t have a granary in my finger. I’d probably notice that, unless, of course, that happened during a football game.

Anyway, with my finger feeling kind of sliver-ish, I proceeded to do what any human[2] would do. After unsuccessfully attempting to remove the unseen granary with my left hand finger nails, I secured more appropriate tools for the job, that being a nail clipper. After carefully cutting away the skin and only a small portion of the flesh, I could not see the granary. My Loving Wife then walked in on me and offered me one of her “girly” tools, that being a tweezer. I dug around in the flesh of my finger for awhile, but, alas, there was no granary to be found. My Loving Wife had also provided me with a pin, so I used that to stab into my flesh, not unlike the Avalanche Rescue teams, who use long sticks to jab into the snow, looking for bodies. Again, nothing of substance, other than my now bleeding flesh, could be found.

That is when I realized the problem. There never was a sliver or granary in my finger. It simply was a disgruntled nerve elf. For those of you who took Biology in High School[3], you know about Nerve Elves. Somewhere inside your brain is a “Pain Centre”. It is a large room with a lot of switches. There, in this room, you will find the Chief Pain Officer (CPO), who is himself a Nerve Elf appointed by the President of the Nerve Elves who lives in a house on a big yard right across from the Pain Centre. Located all through your body are the Nerve Elf Workers, who position themselves at strategic points, such as the tips of your fingers. When the Nerve Elf senses danger or heat or cold or a granary, he picks up the phone and calls the CPO, who then flips the switch correlating to the specific locale of the incoming call, which, in turn, triggers a “pain” sensation in some other part of your brain[4] and your muscles receive a phone call to move away from the danger or, possibly, to find a nail clipper.

I am not sure why the Nerve Elves continue to use hard wired phones when they could be on some wireless network, maybe even using cell phones. I think, though, that there maybe be too many dropped calls or possibly intercepted calls and that poses a great risk to the body. I believe they have recently moved away from rotary dial phones and are now using touch tone.

Sometimes the CPO has to step out of the Pain Centre to take care of “business” or go for a smoke, and the phones ring off the hook. That is why sometimes you hear ringing in your ears. Here is a tip: when you hear ringing in your ears, you know the CPO has stepped out. That means you are free to do things that would normally be painful, such as sticking your finger inside a piranha’s mouth or watching Coronation Street. By the time the CPO gets back to the office and checks his voice mail, it is too late to send pain signals.

The reason why I think my finger hurts[5] is because the Nerve Elf assigned to that position was disgruntled. Grumpy elves have been known to call up the CPO for no good reason. Maybe the Skin was teasing this elf about his favourite football team and the Nerve Elf got revenge by calling in a false granary signal. Who knows? All I know is that, thankfully, my finger has now stopped bleeding.

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[1] What ever happened to “Freedom Fries”?

[2] More likely than not a “male” human

[3] I didn’t either. It looked too boring, except for the cutting open of pigs and frogs and stuff that my Mom wouldn’t let me do at home. So I have since studied biology, figuring out most of it on my own.

[4] I don’t know which part. I haven’t studied that far yet.

[5] Or at least why it originally hurt. Now that I have dug deep into the flesh with a nail clipper, a tweezer, and a pin, I can understand the validity of the pain.