I think it happens to a large percentage of people who get put in charge of stuff - there's an automatic shutoff valve for things like minor niceties and common sense. I've seen it happen a lot in managers - suddenly they have an assistant they can use as an external brain and a part of their own brain suddenly atrophies.

I think it gets more attention with people in charge of stuff (because there's the wonder of how they got the stuff), but in my time in business I've found the "OMG, how do you function?" is pretty evenly distributed.

Also, people in general often suck. Especially at work.

and when they are in cars.

There are always huge crowds of kids playing on my street. Today, as I was walking past, they were all yelling "PAPA! PAPA!" I'm pretty sure the guy behind me wasn't actually the father of all of them, but I guess you never know.....

The men's testosterone levels were also tested - by comparing the length of the men's index finger compared to their ring finger.

If the ring finger is longest, it indicates a high testosterone level.

This subject fascinates me because I have a FREAKISHLY LONG index finger. It's nearly as long as my middle finger and I've never found any human being that has this finger length ratio of stubby ring finger vs. extra long index finger. And don't think I haven't tried--I often ask strangers to hold up their hands so I can compare.

Please tell me I'm not alone in my freakishness and that at least one buffista out there has a long index finger.

My fingers are more or less regular, but my second toe is completely stubby, making my bug toe look enormous, so I feel your pain, Cashmere. (I have completely convinced myself it's the little second toe and not actually a gigantor big toe, so no one say anything, OK?)

Yeah, there are some places (urban) that I don't blink at. This one? NSM. There is a play area that gets well supervised (it seems, whenever there are kids, there are some adults watching) but these kids are just roaming all over.

Bug toe! It took me a bit to figure out it wasn't just a term I hadn't heard before.

I thought you were supposed to be able to tell who was gay from finger lenght ratios, too, no? Is that supposed to be related to the testosterone thing?

Yes, in an equally sketchy way. Quite a few studies have reported that gay men have higher i:r ratios than straight men but some other studies have found the opposite. With women only about half of the studies find the expected lover i:r ratios for lesbians relative to straight women.

What we know for sure is that average i:r ratios for men are lower than average levels for women. After that it gets sketchy, but there is some evidence that within groups of men or women you find low i:r associated with more traditionally masculine patterns of interests, abilities etc. So, for instance, some studies have found that high i:r is more associated with verbal intelligence and low i:r with spatial/quantitative intelligence. But the effects are really small and seem a little dubious to me.

Apropos of nothing, I knew someone in high school with freakishly tiny pinky fingers -- perfectly normal-sized hands, but the pinkies were just barely longer than the first joint of her ring finger. We all got seriously weirded out by her hands (including herself), and during the frantic weirded-out universal hand comparisons that immediately followed, we found that our improv teacher had the exact same tiny pinkies. Never seen anyone in the 20 years since with those pinkies, though.

Man, I am typo girl today. BIG toe. Finger LENGTH.