Tyrades! Do you talk with your hands?

Somewhere over the years, karma gave me the finger.

It all started with an incident in Mrs. Jones’s high school English class. Classmate Tracy Holder was unconsciously performing multiple animated hand gestures as he delivered an emphatic observation. Unnoticed, I smugly imitated his gesticulations.

(That was not my finest hour. The late Tracy was a cool guy, and I would definitely not give my immature younger self an “o-tay” signal for such tomfoolery.)

By the time I was producing an exaggerated version of a basketball referee’s “traveling” signal, Tracy caught on and shot me a death glare.

I...