Measuring Time With Your Body
It takes about one year for my big toenail to grow back.
I’ve verified this on two separate occasions. The first was in college, when we were having a killer waterfight with the girls who lived across the parking lot, and we were just about to enter complete domination phase when I smashed my big toe into one of those scallop-topped concrete edging stones and broke my big toenail right off. It looked like normal a year later. Then, last year when we hiked Maple Mountain, I broke my big toenail halfway off at the root and have been sort of managing that situation ever since. It almost looks like normal now, and it’s been almost a year.
I’m sure, like me, you will not be surprised to know that I’m not the first to notice this fantastic phenomenon.
A quick search revealed that the ancient Yrgyuilf tribe also noticed this phenomenon. Located deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle near the equator, the story goes that this simple tribe had a problem: They could not tell time, because they had no seasons, being near the equator, and they had not noticed the sun yet. They also owned everything they had.
One day the tribe elder had a revelation. He called a tribe council. ”I’ve figured out our problem!” he announced. ”We’re all depressed and unhappy!” A murmur ran through the tribe. Yes! they thought. I hadn’t realized it until now, but yes! I am depressed! And unhappy!
“Probably the reason we are so depressed and unhappy is because we own everything we have, and we don’t have a bunch of crap we don’t really need!” the crowd exclaimed.
“What will we do about it?”
“We need a reason to spend money that we don’t have, and go into debt, on a regular basis!” someone suggested.
“Hey yeah! That’ll work!”
“But … but, when should we do this?”
“Wait — isn’t that what Christmas is for?” someone asked.
The elder took control of the situation. ”Excellent, everyone. We’ve figured out what is wrong with us: we are depressed and unhappy, and we didn’t even know it until now. The reason we are depressed and unhappy is because we don’t have any debt or crap we don’t really need. Celebrating Christmas will solve our problem, as it provides the opportunity to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need. Only problem is, we need to know when to celebrate.”
A wise old man stepped forward. ”Once,” he said, “I stubbed the crap out of my big toe and my toenail broke right off. It took a long time to grow back. We could call that time period, uh, a ‘year’.”
“We will celebrate Christmas every year by spending money we don’t have on stuff we don’t need,” said the tribe elder. ”I feel happier already!”
As the council continued, they decided that each year, they would select a young virgin and smash her big toenail until it fell off. When it had completely grown back, it would be time to celebrate!
It wasn’t long until they realized they could use similar logic for other measurements of time:
- How long after I sprain my ankle until it doesn’t hurt anymore? One month.
- How long after I pull a tooth out of my head until it doesn’t hurt anymore? One week.
- How long after I shave until my whiskers grow back? One day.
- How long after I bean you in the head with this rock until your headache goes away? One hour.
- How long after I prick my finger until the bleeding stops? One minute.
Figuring out a measurement for one day took some time, as the young virgins in town didn’t seem to be growing their whiskers back. After some deliberation, they figured that a male virgin could work. It took a while, but they eventually found a male virgin that actually could grow whiskers back, and they celebrated because now they could measure days.
This worked quite well for the Yrgyuilf tribe for a while. It created jobs as some people were in charge of rounding up the young virgins for timekeeping purposes, and others would regularly prick their fingers or bean them in the head with rocks in order to know things like whether it was time for lunch.
After a while, they started having trouble finding young virgins and also had to simultaneously deal with a significant teenage pregnancy epidemic, so they decided that perhaps any old person could be used for measuring time. Surprisingly, experimentation showed that it worked about the same.
Eventually someone asked the question, “How long is forever?” They had a hard time deciding how to measure this, so they eventually settled on three different options:
- If you bash someone’s skull in with a rock, forever is how long it takes for them to wake up.
- If you sever someone’s legs at the hips with a chainsaw, forever is how long it takes for them to grow back.
- If you impale someone through the heart on a sharpened post, forever is how long it takes for their heart to start beating again.
Since it was so essential to get this experiment right, they searched and searched and eventually found three young virgins to help them complete this experiment. Unfortunately, it was about this time that the tribe pretty much disbanded. Three of the original Yrgyuilf tribe members are still there, spraining each other’s ankles and pricking each other’s fingers and smashing each other’s toenails off and beaning each other in the head with rocks in order to measure time while they are waiting to see how long forever is. They’ve stopped measuring weeks because they are all out of teeth and don’t know how to do it anymore.
The rest of the tribe members moved to the city and became dentists.
