Roxie Bing | she's the one

(1.3) The One with the Thumb

"What is going on here?" I wondered as I came out of the bathroom.
"Relax your hand. Let your wrist go." Chandler was ordering Joey who had a cigarette in his hand.
"Now take a puff."
Joey inhaled the smoke into his mouth because unattractively and awkwardly blowing it out.
"Right, give it to me." Chandler stood up ready to demonstrate.
I immediately walked over to Joey and we shouted in unison.
"I am not giving you a cigarette." Joey insisted.
"Yeah. Do you not what I dealt with when we were teenagers because of your disgusting and incessant smoking habits? Not again."
Chandler tried to insist but we both loudly shouted "no".

"Here." I gestured for me to demonstrate.
"You can show me?" Joey asked.
"Yeah, I used to smoke as a teenager and sometimes at parties. But I don't have the addictive personality gene like this one apparently." I gestured towards Chandler who was sulking by the television.
"Okay." Joey passed me the cigarette.

I showed him and told him how to do it. Inhaling and then smoothly exhaling.
"Joey! Are you listening?" I noticed Joey staring me up and down.
"Uh, well, yeah... I mean, it'd be easier to if you weren't in a towel looking that... hot!" He stammered.
"Joey!" I yelled. "I'm trying to help you!"
"I appreciate it!"
"Appreciate the help with the smoking? Or appreciate me in a towel?" I quizzed.
"Does it matter?"
"Yes!"

We snapped back and forth for a few minutes until we heard Chandler say, "oh my God."
Joey and I turned to see Chandler on the other side of the room smoking a cigarette that he'd obtained while we bickered.
"No!" Joey and I yelled as we dived at him.

***

"They say it's the same as the distance between the tip of a guys thumb to the tip of his index finger." Monica explained.
The three boys all held out their fingers and looked at that distance curiously.
"That's ridiculous." Joey snapped.
I chuckled. "Maybe you shouldn't be so confident anymore."
He scowled at me.

Phoebe came in angrily muttering under her breath.
"Are you okay, Phoebe?" Joey took the plunge in asking.
"Yeah, no, I'm... it's my bank." She snapped.
"What did they do to you?" Monica asked with a genuine concern.

Phoebe explained how there was an extra five-hundred dollars in her account when she'd opened her statement and now she has to go down and deal with the bank.
"What are you talking about? Keep it!" Joey insisted.
"But I didn't earn it! If I kept it, it'd be like stealing."
"But if you spent it, it'd be like shopping!" Rachel seemed in disbelief.

As Phoebe was talking about how keeping it with bring a giant karmic debt, I noticed my brother hanging over the back of the couch.
"Chandler, what are you doing?" I asked. I pulled him back up.
He stared for a second for blowing out a puff of smoke.
Everyone shouted in unison out of anger for Chandler.
"I cannot believe you!" I yelled. "You've been so good for three years!"
"And this is my reward." Chandler said and I shoved him.
"Put it out! Put it out now!" Everyone yelled in unison and Chandler caved and flicked it into Phoebe's drink.

***

"A thumb?" Ross gasped and Phoebe nodded.
Phoebe had entered the coffee shop where the rest of our gang had sat and announced that she'd found a thumb in her store-bought can of soda.
"Ew!" Everyone chorused, revolted.
"I know, I opened it up and there it was - floating around like this tiny little hitchhiker. Does anyone want to see?"
"No." Everyone said at once.

At that moment, Chandler picked a cigarette from his pocket and went to light it.
"Put that out."
"It's worse than the thumb." Rachel insisted.
"This is so unfair!" Chandler whined. "So I have a flaw! Big deal! Like Joey's constant knuckle cracking isn't annoying? And Ross' over-pronouncing every single word? Monica with that snort when she laughs? Or Roxie always thinking she's right? I accept all those flaws, why can't you accept me for this?"
"Does the knuckle cracking bother everybody?" Joey asked after an awkward pause.
"I could live without it." I shrugged.
"Is it like a little annoying, or is it like when Phoebe chews her hair?" Joey asked me for clarification, and Phoebe spat out her hair.
Ross piped up. "Don't listen to him, Pheebs. I think it's endearing."
"Oh, you do, do you?" Joey mocked, over enunciating every word.
"There's nothing wrong with speaking correctly." Ross defended.
"Indeed there isn't." Rachel mocked him as well, over pronouncing her words. "I should really get back to work." She added once she noticed Ross' unimpressed glare.
"Otherwise someone might actually get what they ordered." Phoebe chuckled and Rachel turned back around.
"Oh, so the hair comes out and the gloves come off."
Everyone broke out into a chorus of arguing and bickering over each other so virtually no one in the group was even audible.
I watched as Chandler puffed on his cigarette unproblematically walking away from the group and I rolled my eyes.