Even though I was trying to avoid her at first, helping the jogger made me curious just how deep this power changed people's lives. Clearly the jogger didn't notice anything out of the ordinary being just some legs and a head, but I wanted to know just what it did to her.
"So I'm curious, how often do you have to deal with stuff like this button?" I asked her before she could continue on her way. She turned and gave a little flick of her head, like she was preparing to give a speech well-rehearsed.
"It's common for me to have problems with fixtures designed for use by people with hands. I have many of the same troubles as armless people, and have many of the same solutions. I'm pretty dexterous with my feet and my mouth, that's how I manipulate most things. I do sometimes have to get help with certain things, as you saw," she replied with a sort of bored tone. It seemed like this was a common question. I looked down at her feet and saw she was wearing a kind of shoe with individual toes. Before this power changed her, they were more conventional tennis shoes. "The most recent difficulty is the implementation of chip & PIN payment methods. I used to be able to hand my card to a teller and they could ring things up, but most stores want me to put the card in the machine and punch in a PIN with fingers I don't have. Despite all the challenges I face because of my stature, my life is the one I've got and I'm used to it." She finished her spiel with a bit of a huff, it seemed like despite being used to things, she wasn't very happy with it.
"Things would probably be easier for her if she had hands still," I thought and invoked the power. She didn't go back to normal or anything, but I noticed her footwear was changing a bit. Toes are normally pretty short, but the toes in her shoes were getting longer, about the length of fingers. Her strange footwear ended looking like a cross between a shoe and a very tough glove. I could see her toes - fingers now - flexing as she stood. She took the lull in the conversation as an opportunity to press the skip song button on her leg-mounted MP3 player, balancing on onr leg like a ballerina to get her hand into a positon to use the device.
"She must have a lot of flexibility and balance to be able to use her hands effectively," I thought once more. No Immediate changes seemed to come from this.
"Did you have any more questions?" She asked, sounding a bit impatient. I didn't reslly have any questions yet as I was still mulling things over but I did manage to get out, "So are you really good at the splits?"
"Yes, I'm very flexible, but I have to be to live like this. I've met a few dancers and they were all jealous of how far I can flex," she replied, and demonstrated by standing on one leg while the other was pointed directly up. She then squatted onto the ground and brought both her hands behind her head, interlacing her fingers. She finished off her demonstration by undoing one of her shoes, unzipping her fanny pack, pulling out a pair of sunglasses and putting them on. Her hand was a kind of cross between hand and foot. It had a heel, but it also had four fingers and a thumb. It was kind of weird to look at.
She put her shoe back on her hand and asked, "so did you have anything else to ask?"
"No, just if you need any more water from the fountain." i replied.
"No thanks, I got this," she answered, and walked over to the drinking fountain. She leaned up against it on the side opposite the button, then reached all the way around it and held the button like she was giving it a hug.
"Her ability to be independent must have been increased a lot by her hands and flexibility," I mused, thinking over the changes I made recently.