I’m watching a nature show and saw a happy dog wagging his tail. If you had a tail, what would you like it to do? Show emotions like a dog.or cat. Up and wagging for happy. confident and down for sad, scared? Use it a a pseudo third hand like monkeys do to hang from frees? Would you want it straight or curled?
And I won’t give the details, but there’s a cartoon, I think in National Lampoon’s Cartoons Even We Wouldn’t Dare Print, that’s a take on "Go F yourself*. Ewwww.
I’d want it to be prehensile.
And what would you use it for? GRIN
I want a tail that’s as strong as a kangaroo’s - which I could use to sit (when it is rigid), basically, a 3rd leg.
And it would be awesome to be able to sit upright with that rigid tail, and kick with both legs the way a kangaroo does.
May I have a tentacle instead please? I promise not to use it for evil.
Who couldn’t use an extra hand?
It would be a bit of a tradeoff in that clothes and chairs would have to be redesigned, but I think it would be worth it.
I would like a cow tail, to sling poo with.
A male hippopotamus makes a cow look like a rank amateur.
I would like my tail really muscular, thick, and with fingers at the end. I can use it to flog people who upset me, and when I am not flogging people, I could use the fingers to hold my cup of java or scratch those hard-to-reach places on my back.
Apropos of this thread, the humorist H. Allen Smith wrote a wonderful book called The Age of the Tail
(1955) in which future humans acquire tails, and all the changes it makes to civilization. There are Tail Exercise classes (so you can learn to maneuver them), Tail Beauty Pageants. It changes the designs of clothing and furniture.
I’m picturing a bar scene with all the guys furiously wagging around the girls while utterly failing to act casually disinterested.
Honestly, I think my tail’s main purpose for me is to smack other people’s face. Hahahaha
Kidding aside, it would be great to use it as another hand (like what the others have mentioned). Think of the increased efficiency that it can give to us, humans.
I can’t walk very far without needing to sit down. A thick, supportive tail would really come in handy.
And I could play my cello anywhere, without having to schlep a chair with me.
When I’m barefoot, I can sometimes grab things off of the floor with my toes and toss them up to my hand, saving me the trouble of bending down to pick it up.
This is of course not possible when when wearing footwear. A prehensile tail would be really useful as a third hand in a location (low and behind) different from where our two hands currently are.
Speaking as an electronics guy who has done a lot of soldering, a fully prehensile tail would be very handy. It’s always a problem to try to hold the wires you want to join, the solder, and the soldering iron together!
I’d like a tail like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh- the kind you can bounce on like a spring.
Wag and wag and wag and wag and wag and wag and wag and wag…!
All day, every day!
What a world it would be, everyone’s true feelings would be on clear display.
Wagging tail, or lack thereof, would give away how we REALLY feel about, your cooking, your dress, your haircut etc! HaHa!
I have often thought that if we could figure out how to communicate with animals, their first question to us would be, “So, what’s the deal with the whole ‘no tail’ thing?”
Just imagine what warm, all-encompassing hugs you could give to those you love if you could wrap your tail around them along with your arms.
This reminds me of a hilarious conversation I had once with a friend. We speculated: what if people’s egos were physical organs that others could see? We imagined the ego as a small (or large) balloon-like appendage growing out of the shoulder. It might inflate when a person received applause or compliments. It would be a shriveled raisin barely visible on people with low-self esteem. Donald Trump would need a team of people to accompany him at all times, straining to heft his bulging ego along with him.