I’m Just Wrapped Around His Little Finger

Okay. I’ll admit it. No reason to pretend. I am totally wrapped around Grandson Peter’s little finger

The sun really hurts his eyes. So he has a cool pair of sunglasses. Of course, a little redundant when he’s asleep.

(well, most of the time). And, having accepted that as pretty much a given, I began to wonder where the phrase came from.

I did the Google & Yahoo thing. And the first responses to the question (and I was not at all the first person to ask), were definitions. It means someone has control over someone else. They just have to crook their finger and you come running. I didn’t want a definition. I knew what it meant. I wanted the history of it, because I couldn’t think of a rational reason for it.

Some of the responders actually said that it came from a song written by Sting and recorded by the group The Police, in 1983. And I was torn between thinking how cute it was that lots of people thought that he created that phrase, and being a little horrified that people got all the way to their teen-age hood or adulthood without ever hearing that phrase used in regular, general conversation.

I tried the website for the NPR program “Way with Words,” where people can write in and ask for the history of various words and word usage and phrases. Then each week, the program’s moderators answer questions and explain, and I thought the site might have a directory of sorts of the words and phrases they had covered. No. You can listen to weeks and weeks worth of programs, but I didn’t have time to do that, and who knows if they’ve ever covered “wrapped around his little finger” before.

I kept looking and finally found where it probably comes from. It’s interesting, but not really a positive history, just a possible one. Maybe I’ll write and ask the “Way with Words” people, to see if they can come up with something more definitive. Meanwhile, it was fun having Peter visit for a few days.

We went to Kiddie Land. There’s a train there. Years (and years and years) ago, it was in Cameron Park. That’s where I rode it, as a kid.

Peter stayed busy.

And went to the plant store, and the grocery store, and the Mayborn Museum, and to Sunday School.

Sounds like God is a similar sort of parent, keeping us always before Him, always concerned about us. Meanwhile, I’m not the only person who’s wrapped around some little finger.