L.T.: She said ninety-nine dollars for salmon?
K.T.: No, she said twenty-four dollars. Ninety-nine dollars, better be some really good fish.
L.T.: Goldfish.
I can’t shake hands or greet anyone anymore. It is just too complicated. My baseline preference involves a simple right-hand wave. Hold it up, quick shake, put it down. Hell, sometimes not even a shake. Simple, unmistakable, quick. Fine.
That’s not what other people like. Here’s what I’ve encountered in the past month. Simple traditional handshake, hand in hand. Modified traditional handshake, gripping thumbs. Hand slap and pull away. Hand slap, gripping fingers as if ready to thumb wrestle, shaking. Hand shake, pull in for awkward hug, pressing arms between people. Chest bounce. Fist smash. Fist smash followed by chest bounce. Hug. Head nod. “Hey stupid.”
The problem is that personalized greetings are both salutation and secret message, an admission that you belong. Now, society has so fractured our collective into tiny cliques that each group has their own traditions. Each tribe creates their own ways, and by inviting others in the fold, expand and include others.
I’ve been blessed (cursed) with being a part of a great variety of cliques, much as everyone knows and belongs to different groups of people. Hell, up to a certain point, some of the original cliques have started to fracture themselves, further expanding the depth of knowledge I require in order to interact successfully with all of them. In addition, I have to keep straight which group requires what set of motions and gestures. If this has been any indication, I have no clue when to use what, or even what’s acceptable and not acceptable these days.
As I understand it, the origin of the handshake was to ensure the person opposite you held nothing up their sleeve. Hence, the shaking of the hands would expose any hidden weaponry or devicery. Handshakes are, by nature, quite distrustful and reflect a base pessimism inherent in human society. Yet, we’ve taken them in so many different directions, with so many iterations, losing sight of what they were originally.
Handshakes are also one of the best ways to convey diseases, especially in the winter months. So many germs converge upon these metacarpals, and are so easily transferred from person to person. Your hands touch everything else thereafter, your face, your legs, your butt, my butt, anyone’s butt, everyone’s butt... wrong story.
There’s got to be a better way to greet people, something that doesn’t require such up-close and personal contact. Perhaps telepathy, or a simple wave. If you really want to transfer fluids and other intimate bodily information, upon meeting, we should all make love. This has the interesting side effect of creating some rather interesting dinner parties. “Hi, have you met my husband J.B.?” “No, hi J.B., where would you like to say hello, on the foyer or in the bedroom?” “Let’s use the table, why waste the time?”
Really, making love to a person reveals a lot about them. I’m sure that if you really want to know someone, this would be a more effective way to get to know them than shaking their hand. Shake that ass girl, shake that ass.
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