A Caffeinated Digit 

	 I was eight or nine tentative sips into my coffee before I noticed the obstruction. I popped off the lid and there it was, floating in my coffee like a little pink battleship, an uninvited hitchhiker, a thumb warrior’s front line. The knuckle hair waved at me in greeting. 
	The idea that someone’s clandestine nose picker was floating in my drink, unencumbered by an attached body, drained my face of color. And the thought that my coffee had cascaded over that severed thumb, mixed with whatever diseases or grime that came with the finger, and then flowed down my throat had me retching over the side of my table at the Space Needle lounge. My one consolation was the cleanliness of the fingernail. Whoever it had belonged to was hygiene-minded and owned a pair of clippers. 
	I confronted the barista with all the class and tact of a public-relations specialist.
	“What the hell is this?” I asked as I shoved the thumb-coffee in his face.
	“That’s coffee, miss,” he said. “I gave it to you a second ag- Oh my God!” He saw the thumbs-up I was giving him. “What the hell is that?”
	“Not coffee,” I said. 
	“Where did it come from?”
	“You tell me. I still have both of mine.” I waggled my thumbs at him.
	“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.” He Fonzied to prove his point. “Reagan,” he called to the back. 
	The woman that came through the back door had a massive, leaning nest of dreadlocks that could have housed an entire family of squirrels. She wore a badge that read MANAGER pinned to her chest and she bobbled like a baby with a head too heavy for its own neck. 
	“What’s up, Shane?” she said, already sounding annoyed. 
	Just you wait, I thought at her. 
	“Look,” Shane said, holding the coffee cup out for her to see.
	“That’s a thumb,” she said as if it were on the menu. 
	“Oh,” I said. “Thank goodness, I thought it was a toe! I’ll have my coffee and thumb back and go, thanks.” At least Shane laughed at my sarcasm. “Where did it come from?”
	“It wasn’t there when I put the drink out for you,” Shane said. 
	“But it was there when I took a sip.” I retched a little just at the thought.
	“I did call your name a couple times. Maybe someone slipped it in while the drink was waiting?”
	“It’s not a roofie,” I said. “People don’t just go around slipping fingers into unsupervised coffee.”
	“Somebody does,” Reagan said. 
	“Great,” I said. “So, do I call the cops or something?”
	“The Space Needle has security,” Shane said. “I’ll call them.”
	“Hope they’re a crack squad of hardened detectives.”
	“Would you like another coffee? On the house,” Reagan said, as if I would ever drink coffee again.
	“As if I’ll ever drink coffee again,” I said. 
	Shane picked up the phone and called the security office and Reagan went back to whatever she was doing in the back room; feeding her squirrels, probably. 
	 I scanned the Space Needle sky lounge like a perverted stalker with a finger fetish. Someone there had nine fingers, I was sure of it. Of course, that thought was ridiculous. I knew whoever dipped the finger in my coffee wasn’t the original owner—it’s not like thumbs just fall off. I couldn’t help but take notice of everyone’s fingers, though. Ten here, ten there. C’mon, take your hands out of your pockets. Another ten. The search went on.
	The woeful cry of the elderly wheezed its way through the lounge, drawing my attention. An old man by the elevators wore his skin like a billowy cloak and clutched a brown paper bag to his Members Only jacket with gnarled hands. 
	Ten fingers. 
	The bag had a deep red stain soaking through the base. Grandpa took his jam without the burden of sandwich bread, it seemed.
	 Two men in drab, grey security uniforms towered over him. 
	Twenty fingers. 
	The old man backed toward the elevator, his eyes darting from person to person. He even spared a glance for me. A few heads in the lounge turned at the commotion and one woman stood up, the camera around her neck dripping with tourism. She telegraphed her indignation with clenched fists at her sides and a tinge of crimson rising in her cheeks. I braced for the storm. 
	“You leave that poor man alone,” she said with all the authority of a Mouseketeer. 
	Two teenagers and an embarrassing number of adults took out their phones and started to record everything. 
	“Ma’am,” one of the security officers said. “Please sit down. We’re handling a situation.”
	The woman huffed but sat back down. She hadn’t unleashed much of a storm and the amateur videographers looked disappointed, but they kept their cellphones rolling.
	The cornered man took his opportunity to try to shove past the security guards. The hulking guard that had not taken his eyes form the man grabbed the collar of the Members Only jacket. Like a gonged-out performer being dragged off stage by a comically large cane, the old man came to an abrupt stop. He lost control of the paper bag he had been holding with so much reverence. The sack cartwheeled through the air and sprayed its contents in an expanding arc. My first thought upon seeing the contents scatter in the wind was that the old man must have decided to dip baby carrots in his jam-sack. I was mistaken.
	A severed finger, free from someone’s hand and complete with chipped green nail polish, rolled to a stop at me feet. Twenty or so fingers tumbled through the air. Some stopped at people’s feet while others landed on tables or laps. There was little reaction at first. I’m sure everyone else thought they were baby carrots, too. Then the fist-clencher let out a glorious shriek when she noticed she was being flipped off by a severed finger. The rest of the gawkers followed her example and soon the lounge was a riot of screams and panic. 
	“You killed her!” he shouted as the security guards hauled him away, his feet three inches off the ground. He aimed a spindly finger at the teens recording him with their phones. “You! You killed her with your damn phones! Your fucking phones!” He wailed as they dragged him into the elevator. I snapped a picture with my phone before the doors closed. I had social media posts planned already. 
	I knew should have been more disgusted or mortified or panicked. I should have wondered how such a feeble old man came across so many fingers. I should have been curious about how Shane could let loose such a high pitched screech. Instead, all I could do was wonder how many nine fingered people were wandering around Seattle. 

	As the investigation and the trial progressed, more information was provided by the media. Six years ago, the old man’s wife had been killed by a twenty-year-old driver who had been texting. The old man—a retired surgeon—was hell-bent on removing the fingers of every millennial he could drug and kidnap in order to stop the same thing from happening again. The fingers in the definitely-not-jam soaked bag had come from victims across the country.  The media and social justice warriors took his side and ran with it, belching anti-cellphone rhetoric for months—most of which was digested on mobile devices. 
	I, on the other hand, tweet about the whole thing almost everyday. Investigators found that the thumb in my coffee had been laced with a sedative. I was going to be his next victim. If that isn’t worth tweeting out, I don’t know what is.
	I still don’t understand how that feeble sack of jello and bones had kidnapped anybody, let alone people 60 years his junior. They didn’t  find evidence of an accomplice, but this son has been missing ever since. 
	But, you know what? Who cares? They caught the main guy and I can drink coffee again. 		
	All is well. 
	Thumbs up.