The Prints of my Fingers

On Tuesday, I had my fingerprints taken.

Relax, I didn't do anything illegal to warrant this action. In order to receive my initial teaching license upon graduation, my fingerprints need to be documented and run by the Arkansas State Police, FBI, and Child Protective Services to make sure I'm not a scary criminal.

I can't lie, I was pretty excited about this fingerprinting. So, if you're a wonderer like me and you've never been fingerprinted, I'll tell you what its like.

First of all, it's a little more complicated than it seems. In the event that you're finger printed, you'll be tempted to do it yourself; however, you must be patient and relaxed as the officer twists your fingers around so that they produce the perfect print.

The "stamp pad," if you will, of ink isn't like a stamp pad you and I are used to either. It feels like a cool, almost damp table top. It is red.

So, you let the officer roll your fingers on to the red stamp pad and then press them on to your very own fingerprint sheet. Then, the officer instructs you to wash your hands, and by the time you return, he has placed your fingerprint sheet into a magic drying box and when he retrieves it your fingerprints are no longer red; they've turned black.

It is so cool; I thought it was, anyway.

Well, folks, there you have it. That's how fingerprinting goes down.

This is a photo of a fingerprint sheet that I found on the internet. It looks a lot like mine, except these fingerprints happen to belong to Malcolm X. I wanted to take a picture of my sheet, but I sensed that might annoy the officer, so I refrained from asking.

You know how you don't want something until you can't have it? Well, here's the other thing about fingerprinting: NO LOTION. If you put lotion on your hands, the lotion fills in the lines, and your prints won't take properly. My teacher, Mr. W., had warned us extensively about this, so I was prepared live sans lotion on Tuesday.

But, oh golly goodness, how I longed to have lotion on my hands. Just to clarify, I'm not even a lotion fanatic. I love lotion, yes, but I don't have to use it every day. On Tuesday, though, I needed it. My hands felt dry and itchy and cracky and gross.

I cannot describe to you just how much knowing that I couldn't have lotion that morning made me want to use it, need to use it, even more. Once the fingerprinting was over, my hands felt totally fine and normal; the dryness, itchiness, and crackiness had all miraculously disappeared.

Isn't it weird how we sometimes want the one thing we can't have? I think it's a really funny part of our nature as humans (or at least my nature as a human).

For those of you wondering, I abstained from lotion use before my fingerprinting. =]

I hope you have a Happy Wednesday.