I am a chronic thumbs-upper. I suffer from the inability to keep my shortest digit safely tucked away in the palm of my hand, and instead flaunt it about in inappropriate situations.
I was oblivious to the issue until my best friend brought it to my attention a few weeks ago at Sunday night dinner. Every Sunday, eight of my friends and I take turns cooking, and then we eat together, sometimes we watch football, sometimes we play a game, sometimes we worship together, but often we simply shoot the breeze. Lest you be too jealous, this dinner often consists of frozen pizza or breakfast food, we are sort of crammed into a tiny living room/kitchen where most people sit on the floor, and the only reason we can convene most of nine people every week is because four of us live together and the five others live with each other. In a miracle orchestrated by God and several years of relational work, we all happen to enjoy each other’s company. Sunday nights are special to me, and they may be what I miss most about the end of this season of life.
But I’ve gotten distracted. This specific Sunday dinner came after my housemates and I had briefly met the boy my roommate had been talking to. (In case you didn’t already, you ought to read “talking to” in the tone of a fourteen-year-old younger brother who is about to tease you within an inch of your life for the full experience.) This was our first introduction, and we were saying hello after an event we attended in support of said roommate. In the span of about four minutes, I gave this man FIVE thumbs up. Double, single, double—just like that he got five.
Now, I only know this because I was told. I remember meeting him, I remember saying hello, I remember, even, what I said to him. But I do not remember my thumbs being involved. My best friend told me, on the down low, because not everyone at Sunday night dinner yet knew about the boy of interest who had received such an outpouring of thumbs. She took advantage of my forced silence and mimicked me, cocking her hip and extending her thumbs, and we died laughing. But then, of course, everyone asked what we were laughing about. We gave them the sparknotes—me, a relative stranger, and lots of seemingly compulsive thumb-related positive gestures.
So then I was mercilessly teased, both about this and about the fact that the Sunday before, in a laugh-induced coughing fit, I had managed to ram the top of a chair into my own eye. Have I mentioned yet that I love Sunday nights and that maybe I have a proprioception problem?
Anyhoo, that night, I decided I had better get a handle on this thumb situation because I wouldn’t want to unconsciously make such a gesture in a far more formal setting where it might be perceived as flip and disrespectful instead of simply being an endearing, awkward tic. And I was doing okay, for a little while, only flashing my thumb in selfies or funny photos—until last weekend.
My best friend and I had been recruited to do the Advent reading and candle lighting for the Sunday morning service. If you’re an astute reader, you know where this is going, but if you’re not, I’ll tell you anyway.
I gave the entire congregation a double thumbs-up. It was surreptitious, my hands all the way down by my side, not sticking out at ninety degrees in front of me, so there’s the silver lining, maybe?
Now, I thought that, even in this lapse, perhaps I was getting better because I was aware it happened. I felt the awkwardness build and build as we walked to the front. It just had to be dispelled! I was compelled and horrified and tried to stop myself even as my thumbs went up.
But alas, that night at Sunday dinner—because about half of us all attend the same church, and therefore my best friend obtained several corroborating witnesses—I was informed I had given not one double thumbs-up, but two.
They started a bit, then, about how at my wedding when I met the groom at the altar I’d give him a thumbs up, and probably the watching audience as well, and that they would secretly instruct the wedding photographer to see how many times she could capture me giving someone a thumbs-up at the reception.
And in all of this laughing I was watching the man who I hoped would maybe someday be that groom and the women who I hoped would maybe be standing next to me when I married him and the men who he hoped would maybe be standing next to him and I smiled.
Have I mentioned yet that I love Sunday nights and that maybe my thumbs usually have it right?
Savannah Shustack graduated from Calvin in 2024 with a major in literature and plans to have the job of “books” one day. Rather like Ken, she is still figuring life out; the job “books” provides plenty of wiggle room, though she’s currently leaning toward being a librarian. Savannah is a New England native who enjoys watching hockey (Go Bruins!) and playing board games—especially ones she can win.
