elbows

It occurred to me a while back that elbows are ugly. This is not something that I say lightly, but after much contemplation I have arrived at this conclusion. In fact I really don’t understand why some cosmetic company hasn’t taken on an elbow beautification project. Maybe some type of cream or something to take away the stark unattractiveness of the back side of this joint.

It is not when the arm is flexed that the elbow’s homely characteristics come into view but when it is straightened out. This action suddenly brings into view the bunched up humps and bumps of unsightly skin on the back of the arm that were not there before.

If you really think about it, all the high-class advertising done on TV and in magazines do not give you a good picture of unflexed elbows. Possibly they have become aware of this and will not admit it to the rest of the world. They probably have to do a lot of airbrushing of photos that accidentally depict this uncomely joint.

Even with all the care given to avoid showing the elbow, occasionally an image will still get through. One that I saw recently was in a catalogue and showed a medium-young couple walking along a narrow stretch of beach; she was just ahead of him and was reaching back, holding his hand. Normally this would be a rather romantic shot, but she had one of the ugliest elbows I have seen in a long time and it was in full view. It just killed the subtle nuances they were trying to create in my mind about whatever product they were trying to sell.

It does make me wonder if there may be some yet undiscovered tribe in a remote jungle - that has yet to be contacted by mankind - that have beautiful elbows. If that came to pass, we could do some serious elbow research to discover the genetic characteristic that causes this wonderful condition to exist. Then maybe we could synthesize the genetic material, put it in pill form and take it on a daily basis. Soon thereafter everyone would have beautiful elbows.

Until then we will just have to suffer through these awful sights and if it gets too bad, just turn our heads. Probably the reason most folks don’t realize the ill-favored-ness of this part of the body is that it is situated on the back of the arm and can only be fully viewed in the mirror. Hopefully this missive will not start a trend of carrying larger mirrors for the express purpose of self-elbow viewing.

A practical solution for this problem would be for everyone to start to wear long sleeves, even in summer. Another would be to wear elbow guards, with which you could hide the elbow as well as appear somewhat athletic. If this latter trend caught on, they could be made in all colors and combinations thereof, maybe even camouflage, for the “manly” among us.

Many are so caught up with how they look on the outside that they fail to do anything about some of the very ugly parts of us on the inside. A very big one of these is the attitude. Bad attitudes are sometimes not seen by the person that possesses one, even if they are quite obvious to everyone else.

A man by the name of Herm Albright once said: A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

While I do not ascribe to this method of coping, I did enjoy the thought processes involved. For us to change these inner unwanted things about us, we first have to be aware of them. It takes the mirror of God’s Word for us to even see inner unpleasant things, plus God is the only one that can really help us change these things as well.

Since all of us except babies and small children have ugly elbows, maybe we should just ignore them and get on with our lives. Did I mention that a high percentage of knees are not very comely either? ec