Hitting my elbow the other day, right on the funny bone, got me thinking: Fuck, shit, motherfucker!
But after that, as the pain subsided, I wondered: why are elbows so poorly designed and so easy to injure? And how can we improve them?
The obvious answer came to me: the elbow bum. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like; an extra layer of muscle and fat wrapped around your vulnerable joint.
Would it look weird? Maybe. But I think we’d get used to it so long as enough people got them; a sort of critical mass. I suppose there might be some adjustments to be made in fashion so as to accommodate the elbow bums. But nothing too difficult; mostly just stretchy elbow patches.
A quick search of the Internet for “elbow bum” surprisingly revealed no one else is even considering this possibility. Rather all results led to “elbow bump”, that is the COVID era replacement for the handshake. Personally, I’ve actually seen very few people ever elbow bump; certainly not since the initial days of COVID passed. From my perspective, most people are handshaking again.
However, I have a husband working in the restaurant industry, who gets to observe hundreds of colleagues and friends greet each other each day and he confirms that while the most common greeting is the handshake, a fist bump is actually a close second. Then there is the third option: an awkward combination of the two greetings, wherein one person goes for a handshake and the other goes for a first bump, resulting in one person grabbing the other persons fist in a “Bump n’ Grab”. Or is it a “Fist n’ Shake”?
In this scenario, the bumper typically feels fine while the grabber (hand shaker) inevitably feels sheepish at grabbing the closed fist. The only logical remedy for this situation is, of course, for the parties to then switch position. The grabber must now bump and the bumper must now grab.
One obvious issue arises: when executing the “Bump n’ Grab” how do you know which of you initiates with the bump and which with the grab? (Cuz if we’re not clear about that, we might just end up with a typical, boring greeting). The answer: the tallest person in the pair is the designated bumper to start. And voila! You’ve discovered a fun, new greeting!
Alright people, lets get out there and popularize the “Bump n’ Grab” like we mean it.