SHAKING HANDS AND KISSING CHEEKS

I do not understand why people insist on shaking hands and kissing each other on the cheek every time they see one another. It’s ridiculous. Do we really like one another that much that we will risk getting sick and possibly gravely ill? Given all the viruses and bacteria being transferred around our global cesspool, I think it is about time to change these conventions.  As far as I’m concerned, the traditional Japanese greeting is the way to go. Why are we so slow to see the genius in some of their customs?

Thank god people are starting to come around to my way of seeing things. It has taken SARS, the Bird Flu and now the H1N1 virus to convince people that shaking hands or kissing each other on the cheek every time we greet one other is an unnecessary health risk.  Ever since I became an adult and started thinking logically, I tried to avoid kissing and shaking hands where it is possible to do so without offending people. Why am I the strange one when I meet someone for the first time in my life and I choose to not kiss their cheek or allow them to slobber all over mine?  I don’t know where that cheek has been. That cheek might have just been licked by a dog that had just finished chewing on a stick it found in the gutter. Maybe that person just went to a washroom at a gas station, walked out without washing their hands, touched the door handle that had been contaminated by hundreds of people who decided not to wash their hands after taking a crap, and has just finished using that hand to scratch their cheek. Now do you want to kiss that cheek?

Shaking someone’s hand might not seem to pose as great a threat as kissing, but let’s look a bit closer. An acquaintance of yours has just finished working downtown in the financial district and greets you by shaking your hand. He has touched at least 15 doorhandles since he last washed his hands. The same door handles that have been touched by thousands of people including homeless people who tend to hang out in the underground Path system. I have nothing against homeless people per se, but I think we can agree that they are not exactly the cleanest people around. Then your acquaintance takes the subway and while sitting down he decides to play with the bottom of his shoes!  When I see that, and I have seen it more times than I care to recall, I’m dumbfounded. What are people thinking when playing with the soles of their shoes??  Part of the reason we wear shoes is to protect us from what we’re walking on, like animal feces, urine, decaying birds and insects, gum, dirt, chemicals et cetera. How does it make sense to then play with your soles or pick things out of your treads?  You do realize that you’re going to be using that hand to fix your hair or wipe your face or scratch your balls or open a piece of gum OR GREET SOMEONE !!!  It simply does not make any sense for civilized people to be doing that. I have been in business meetings before where the person I’m speaking with starts playing with the bottom of their shoes. It is pretty tough to concentrate when you know that at the end of the meeting you’re going to have to shake that hand.

so can we please agree that a simple bow or wave of the hand is enough of a greeting under normal circumstances. Let’s leave the handshaking and the kissing to special occasions, like birthdays.  That I could live with.