Hand or Fist?
At some point, without my knowledge or consent, the venerable "handshake" was replaced by the "fist bump" (or "terrorist fist jab" to all of you Fox News fans) as the accepted form of greeting. Is this peculiar to the culture of Memphis, or is it more pervasive? I don't know. No one asked my consent, I didn't even get a memo; the earth turned, the landscape changed, and, suddenly, the world was a different place.
I have nothing against this development per se; I'm not one of those scared white people who thinks anything different than what's gone before, especially anything different that non-white people are doing, harbingers the end of civilization as we know it (see Fox News, above). I just find it confusing. When I meet a new person, do I offer the hand, or go immediately for the fist? Invariably I choose the wrong one and end up looking like a jackass. While there are worse outcomes for a first meeting ("assault", "immolation", and "cannibalism", for example), "looking like a jackass" ranks pretty high on the undesirable list. Perhaps some sort of early warning system is in order to signal intent: "hand" or "fist"? After all, it is probably not in anyone's best interest to make a new acquaintance look like a jackass. Unless, of course, he is a jackass. You may make of that statement what you will.