Crack & Grow Up Grace Anzalone

I firmly believe that antidrug campaigns whose values instill the “just say no” attitude in elementary school children should be extended to encompass the wretched habit of knuckle cracking. I have done it since I was a young tot, I am told, which seems to make sense since I could rattle off about fifteen variations of the harrowing warnings that my peers and superiors are inclined to give when they hear my signature bone crunching. For instance, “You’re going to get arthritis, you know. My great uncle cracked his knuckles, Grace, and now he has to hire a scribe to put his mental pen to paper.” But I was a brave little thing, or else just hard headed, and would respond with a flippant retort regarding the godly strength of my family’s bones, but thank you for the concern. And so it looked as if I was destined for a life of displaced synovial fluid and gradual knuckle swelling which could very well ruin a far off proposal that some brave man would make.

But, even after years of practiced cracking, came a new manipulation of my fingers which proved to produce the same symptoms in a week as would several decades of relentless cracking. I would grasp the top joint, between my first and second knuckle, and twist, until a faint yet...