What is with you people? Haven’t you heard there’s this Mexican flu going around? And I say Mexican because: 1) The Pork Industry is whining about calling it the "swine" flu, 2) H1N1 doesn’t roll off the tongue, 3) Like illegal immigrants and their parasitic brain worms, it came from Mexico.
But back to the handshake thing…
I’ve recently complained about how people don’t wash their hands. And that was before El Flu hit. Now that it’s a pandemic, all these soapaphobes are just damned stupid. People are wearing masks in some parts of the country. I wonder if they wash their hands?
The point is, there’s a flu out there that is potentially lethal. That means you alter your lifestyle. Like wearing a filter mask, washing your hands more often and yes, stop shaking hands!
I’ve never been fond of handshaking. For one, I don’t like strangers. Maybe the don’t-talk-to-strangers message of my youth was hammered home too effectively, maybe I’m anti-social. But if I don’t know you, I sure as hell don’t want to touch you. I don’t know where your hand has been. And in many cases, I’m positive I don’t want to know.
Keep your hands to yourself. Seriously. I’m not going to be offended if you give me a little cranial tilt and leave it at that. We aren’t Knights crossing paths in the woods. You don’t need to show me your hand is empty. Move on. Please.
I think the Japanese have it right. Bows. I know, it’s a touch feminine as it’s disturbingly similar to a curtsy, but really, it’s much more hygienic. A handshake is like a hug on a small scale. Do you go around hugging strangers? I don’t like hugs from anyone except my wife and my kids.
Not only is handshaking unhygienic during a pandemic, but it seems empty and overdone in our modern society. We live in a world where people rarely hold doors open for each other. Where "Please" and "Thank you" are archaic terms more suited to history books than modern conversation. Where Road Rage is more common than yielding the right of way. Why then do people insist on handshaking?
Is it a power thing? I had a guy at my work once, that insisted I shake his hand when we were done talking- when he was done yelling at me and I wouldn’t give him the answer he wanted. I refused. Primarily because he made Charlie Brown’s pal Pig Pen look clean. He later called in and made a complaint with my boss that I wouldn’t shake his hand. I explained I reserve the right to touch who I please, and that my kids bring enough germs home from school without me contributing.
So for me, the Mexican flu pandemic is a good thing. Where I normally decline and politely lie and tell people I’m sick, or ignore their hand as though it were invisible, now I have a good excuse for not shaking hands. At least with some people. I guess with all the bone heads that still insist on touching, maybe I ought to start calling their bluff. Cough into my hand then stick it out.
Nah, that wouldn’t work. If they won’t wash their hands after a trip to the potty, they’d probably still grab on.
ROTFL!!
That works for me, Trog. Cough into your hand and….
Sometimes, I wonder if you and I are made from the same cloth [don't get any wrong ideas...I mean when it comes to germophobia].
Maybe, that’s why I enjoy ‘Monk’ so much [and now your stories] because I can empathize. No one has to explain it to me, and while everything doesn’t have to match perfectly or numbers rounded up to the nearest zero, or touch every pole on the street…I know how Monk feels. Germs are everywhere, and not enough conscientious people to abort THAT population.
As much as I don’t care for handshakes from strangers, I think – you’d agree – that hugging and kissing on the cheek is even worse.
Imagine living in one of those countries, like France, where they do a double kiss on each cheek!? That would put you in a mental institution….or you’d have to walk around in a bubble suit even when it’s 90 degrees!!
Hey, some handshaking sense!
University of Chicago bans handshakes at graduation!
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/UIC.graduation.H1N1.2.1003135.html
What is with you people? Don’t you know that ingesting small amounts of bacteria actually helps to “strengthen” your immune system? After gladly shaking hands with someone, I generally lick my hands in order to get the full benefit of the bacteria in question.
I guess I will outlive all of you mysophobes!
To R.B.
Thanks, but No thanks. Plenty of bacteria in and around us to overlook the ones “offered” as a present.
I’ll pass “looking in the horse’s mouth”…in fact, I’ll pass the horse, altogether! Yuck!
As for outliving us, there is a possibility, but don’t be too quick to place a bet.
All right! Excellent!
My second name is Jackson, Smith or Himmler and my blood is color blue or maybe white. God bless to everyone who was born white! Let’s encourage them! Give them some weapons and let them shoot to those dirty wetback immigrants without education, principles or moral integrity that cross everyday to our backyard. Wait! Let them cut the grass before kill them. Who the hell knows what is the name of that small country at the south of Texas or Arizona? My god! I can’t remember the name of those insignificant lands!
God bless the one hundred bill and also to our president… oops! I didn’t again! He’s black!
We must keep watching the Mexican Flu news in CNN the whole day and eating BigMacs! Don’t be upset Turner if my skin tone turns red when somebody wants to give me a handshake. Do anybody remember that a couple weeks ago Mexico was complaining for the weapons traffic as much as we complain about the drugs traffic?
I’m still proud to be one of the few American who keeps thinking that America starts in California. Please, let me load my shotgun again. One of these days, I’m going to shoot some of my classmates and teachers before discharge the rest of my ammunition at my head, like Kurt did it, yeah!
Today, I woke up and said myself: You can write a blog, catch traffic and earn some money. That could be a more rational argument for my racist comments instead of tear my shirt because suddenly an Illiterate is pretending to write a blog.
By the way, I’m proud of being Mexican, proud of being white too as much as if I were black, brown, yellow or red, I’m proud of having an Engineering degree even I started working at 11 years old without either shoes nor opportunities, I’m proud of living in a country with more than two thousand years of history where the Spanish culture was just the final touch, Proud to be able to communicate me in at least two languages (Idiot: You are reading me), Shamed about our politicians but not about the rest of the compatriots, Proud for the success of our both two North neighbors and learning the good basics everyday, sad because there are still bastards like the one who wrote the above post that forgets that in a globalized world there is not any One-Country-Flu, specially when the numbers say that there are more sick people outside of this country.
Arbeit macht Frei !
Vivan los narcos cabrones! Cocaine kills the brain worms. You don’t have to be worried.
Hey, welcome to the blog, amigo.
I’d like to clarify a few things though… first, while my mother was indeed a bitch, I was born in wedlock, so technically, I’m not a bastard. Secondly, and also technically, I’m red, although for simplicity’s sake I normally just put “white”.
Also, I’m confused… where is your fiery rhetoric on German Measles? The Ebola Virus? The Black Plague?
Kudos on your engineering degree. Which Liberal Bastion of Free-Thought and Diversity did you earn it at?
And does someone know something I don’t? Are we getting PAID for this blog?! I didn’t get my check yet!!!!
P.S. Mexico is a place, not a race, mein dumbkopf.
Look what the wind brought in. A joker with a BIG chip on his shoulder
Whatever the wind brought in, it certainly does carry a foul stench.