The Privacy of Scratching.

Often when I’m sitting at the computer I get an itch to one side of the lower part of my back, and that part of the body is the most difficult to reach without some sort of implement. It always reminds me of the little tool that every home had when I was a kid – the back scratcher. It was a long wooden rod with a piece at the bottom carved in the form of a hand with curled fingers. A most useful piece of equipment you must admit, but its communal function disturbed me and I could never use it after somebody else. It always seemed somehow indecent and unhygienic. (Strange child, as ever.) And I still shudder slightly inside when I hear the expression ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’

(And the end of the story is that I scratch the unreachable parts of my back with a letter knife.)