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Illegal Use of Hands

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing all water surface area in the state of Minnesota.

Beechly Ice shark copy

Greetings Constituents,

I am alarmed to see the tussle that has emerged from President Obama’s brief handshake with Cuban strongman Raul Castro. How our president could be so careless is beyond a mystery to me. I have been in politics for a relatively short while but I learned early on that it is very bad policy to shake hands with people.

That’s why I don’t do it! Not only is it unsanitary, it’s bad politics.

Those of you who have met me at campaign rallies know that I’m a back slapper. I will enthusiastically slap the back of anyone who is willing to stand near me, but I won’t hug you or leave my arm lying across your shoulders and I won’t shake hands because I could pick up germs or worse, political cooties!

Here’s the honest truth – when I’m introduced to people, I have no idea who they are or what they have done. Or what they WILL do. Unfortunately, a photograph of me with any person found later to have committed a heinous act could spell the end of my political career. And if that happens, we ALL lose!

So in self defense, I will slap you on your back. Why? Because in the moment it feels chummy, but in photographs it looks like I could be pushing you away. If it turns out later that you abuse kittens or run a meth lab, that’s the spin I’ll put on our encounter. I say this to be completely transparent and honest with you. While some constituents have complained about this habit of mine, most who have heard the explanation come to understand it is simply good common sense.

And it works both ways – as protection for you, too! I don’t have to tell you Congress is highly unpopular right now. And you never know what I’ll do! But I think we can all agree, I’m probably smarter than the president! On this issue, anyway.

So look for me in the district this winter. I won’t make you take your gloves off to greet me – it’s far too cold for that. We’ll just share a mutual pounding between the shoulder blades. It’s just one of the many ways I continue to look out for your interests, and mine.

Your Congressman,
Loomis Beechly

I told Congressman Beechly there’s another good reason not to shake hands at 9th district political events – so many of the participants have just had their fingers in a cup of worms! Of course whenever I think of handshakes, this song comes to mind!

Are you a glad hander or a back slapper?

37 thoughts on “Illegal Use of Hands”

  4. Good morning. Hand shaking is okay. I’m not a back slapper and only engage in hugging if it is sort of expected. Physical contact is something I shy away from. However, I don’t mind shaking hands. Don’t expect me to go out of my way to shake your hand. I wouldn’t refuse a hand shake if it is offered. Beechly should start engaging in hand shaking. Some people are going to wonder if he is a “real man” if he doesn’t start shaking hands.

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  5. I prefer no physical contact at all (why can’t the West adopt East Asian bowing?), but if I feel obliged to I will shake hands. Back-slapping is weird; it’s meant to be a collegial gesture, but it comes across to me as dominance behavior. We have a joke that involves very stiffly patting the other person two or three times on the shoulder with the flats of one’s fingers at arm’s length; it’s something that happened to my friend at one of her many QA management jobs when a subordinate programmer was trying to make nice (I don’t think she ever did figure out which part of the code he’d messed up, it was so bolloxed from the start).

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    1. It is a serious “breaking of the code” as you say not to shake hands. I feel weird not shaking hands. For years I just took the pain until it got past the minor stage. I get tired of explaining, but many folks still think I’m weird. They 1) try to shake my hand anyway, and if they succeed they do it vigorously it seems to prove a point, or maybe they think its psychotherapy to do so. (What part of the word pain don’t they get?) I now keep my hands in my pockets in church. 2) Smile at me as they would a naughty child or a serial killer. 3) Tell me about their grandmother but not in 25 words or less. 3) touch me somewhere else, usually lightly, but a vigorous slap on the back or shake of the shoulder.is not uncommon.
      Touch means so many things in our culture that it is awkward. Many are taught to make a strong handshake. Today at the funeral I will go through this many times. One of the reasons I quit doing pulpit supply was the handshake at the door. A weird ritual, I have always thought. Many pastors, for various reasons have stepped back from greeting everyone but make themselves available in the narthex or the front of the nave. Some for the pain issue. 150 handshakes, a few strong and vigorous, hurts most anyone over 55.

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      1. When Krista and I visited with you, Clyde, I forgot about your problems with being touched and shook your hand. Then I remember about your problem and you said it was okay because on that particular the light handshake that took place wasn’t a problem. I don’t know why I offered the handshake. It isn’t something I do all of the time. I guess I thought of it as a way to indicate that I had very much enjoyed the visit.

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      2. I would shake hands with one of our lurkers, a cousin of my wife’s, if she would come to the funeral today, but she cannot.
        Elnoy the day baboons. Speaking of which, maybe we humans should imitate our fellow primates on this issue. You know, lice.Think of all the lice you could pick off of Congressmen.

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      3. Clyde – This may be pretty off the wall, but I wonder if you could fashion a cardboard hand, or stuff a glove with foam or something, and offer it to people to shake while explaining about the pain. Then they would have something to DO, which I think is where their discomfort and weird behaviors come from…

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        1. Funeral home: weird light and so many flowers flowers flowers. Then over to a house for a gathering of about 35 people. All the flowers brought over there. Now crowds, chaos, noise, noise noise. I came home and laid in the dark for three hours. Starting to recover. The handshake avoidance went well, in part because Sandy prepped a few people about it.

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    2. I have been known to do the small head-bow in lieu of extending a hand. We live in a multi-cultural society, and in many cultures, men do not shake hands with women for reasons we may not like, but I feel out of politeness should be respected.

      Then there is cold/flu season, don’t shake hands then either.

      and I have several friends for whom, like Clyde, a handshake is agony.

      Backslapping, um no.

      and hugging? German-Midwestern-Lutheran here, don’t be ridiculous.

      a smile and slight respectful bow of the head covers a lot of bases.

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  6. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Glad Hander I guess. Does anyone really think about this? Except Rep. Beechly, of course. And we all know how useful his thoughts are… This must be what our Congress is considering rather than legislation and the issues of our day.

    No wonder there has been so little work to come out of this Congress. They really DO think about this stuff.

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  7. Happy Friday the 13th!

    Hm. An interesting approach, Congressman. Of course, to engage the full backslap, I expect that means you have to approach all greetees from behind or, at the very least, an obtuse angle. A frontal greeting will negate the backslap, unless you ask them to turn around, trick them into turning to the side, or have your security detail turn them for you. I could be wrong but having access to the actual -back- of someone is a necessary component to the backslap maneuver.

    Of course, some see greetings of people as immediate struggles for dominance, particuarly among power brokers such as polticians. So, maybe ‘sneak attack greetings’ are trending in the political world. Brings whole new meaning to the term “arms race” to include hands and faces as well.

    And we’ve certainly seen innovations of “full-contact politics” before. Who could possibly forget George W. Bush’s impomptu shoulder massage of German Chancellor, Angel Merkel. Granted, that wasn’t an actual ‘greeting’ but it certainly left her (and the world) with an impression.

    And there’s New Jersey Sentate Republican candidate Steve Lonegan sloughing off a mortal enemy who…oh, wait…that was his wife. Well, I’m sure he didn’t want to show weakness or garner sympathy, which might have implicated that Republicans have feelings of some kind. Always important to tow the party line. Perhaps he needed a good, sharp backslap at that moment to show just how tough he really was.
    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/awkward-video-shows-new-jersey-republican-steve-lonegan-bristling-wife-touch-article-1.1489121

    And then there’s the whole ‘kissing thing.’ Talk about political dynamite! Not only is it unsanitary, it potentially encourages stalkers and gets you into very intimate contact with the unwashed (and, potentially, ugly) masses of your constituency. Disgusting!
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/awkward-kissing-why-do-pollies-peck-20130814-2rvqi.html

    I think an even more effective illustration of the above point is illustrated by:

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    3. I have been kissed by a famous politician. It was pretty exciting. But maybe some of my illnesses when I was young resulted from that germy contact?

      Okay, I actually don’t remember it. My mom told me that Hubert Humphrey kissed me when I was a baby. Back then politicians kissed babies a lot, I think. And I’m pretty sure that I did not get any disease-causing germs from good old HHH.

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  8. That’s the choice we’re given? Glad hander or back slapper? Sorry, but I’m too shy to do either one naturally. So I’m mostly a hugger because I mostly touch only people I’m close to already.

    I hope Obama didn’t take any cigars from Raoul. The US sent some pretty strange ones to his brother.

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  10. I am a quick and surreptitious shoulder-rubber.Sometimes I am a hair ruffler for those much shorter and younger than myself. I enjoy being with our friends from Montreal, who do the double cheek kiss thing. Off to Fargo today for the Concordia Christmas Concert. I expect to be sitting in a sea of Norwegian sweaters tomorrow night, clad in my own, of course.

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    2. As a substitute teacher there were a few times when I used my hands to redirect students. I knew that I should keep my hands off students. Eventually I learned to avoid moving kids around with my hands even though some of them were very slow at following directions and I really wanted to give them a little push.

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  11. Unlike my brother, I’ll hug anything that moves. I use the excuse that there’s no one “built-in” to hug in my life. I’m not at all discriminating although I get a lot more out of hugging someone with whom I’m very close. Since I rarely see these individuals (can’t hug over the phone!), I stock up on enough hugs when I’m out dancing to almost last a whole week. In dance venues, I get hugs from so many people I don’t know or barely know. My favorite predictable hug each time is from John, the bouncer at the Narrows. He’s a handsome 40-year old who’s crazy about me for some unknown reason. Each time I enter the scene, he throws his arms around me tightly, picks me up off the floor, and twirls me around. He’s also the only man who’ll slow dance with me. Last week end I even asked him if he’d be my New Year’s Eve “date” since I’ve never been out on that night in a decade. He said, “Yes, if I’m working that night!” I realize that this is situation-specific, but it feels good anyway.

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      1. Yes! It’s only 4 minutes up the road and is the friendliest Cheers type bar in the county (as far as I know because I won’t drive more than 20 minutes from here). I know all the Motown bands, the staff, and dozens of patrons there.

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  12. I suppose I’m a hand shaker, and hugs come pretty easily if I know the person. It’s interesting at folk dance sometimes, a person will have a cast on a wrist or some other pain, and you learn to hold the cast, or otherwise make accomodations. Several of usat Tapestry are of an age when the “shoulder hold” for certain dances is painful – it only works to be the last person in line, making it necessary to “regroup” each time someone new joins on.

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  14. I am definitely not a back slapper. You can get in a lot of trouble slapping people here in the big house. I will shake hands, but not often. Not much of a hugger, either. Whether or not I enjoy shaking hands or hugging depends a lot on who the other hand-shaker or hugger is. At this stage in my life, I do a lot of hugging and kissing with my twin grandsons. I tell you, they are so extremely cute and sweet, I just can’t help myself.

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  16. OT again – I posted a recap of the book club meeting on the Blevins site. The books selected for the next meeting – set for February 9th at Jacque’s – are Broken For You, a novel by Stephanie Kallos; and for those who like a second assignment, Nick Hornby’s More Baths, Less Talking, a collection of writings about books.

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