Complicated Handshake Drink

I gotta tell ya,  I am concerned about the state of human relations in this day and age. How we meet and greet each other says a lot about our relationships. Some of us have known each other since elementary school, high school or since we started working together. Some of us have only just met. Some of you know that I have worked in various nightclubs and bars around the lower mainland for several years now. In addition to being the types of places where people meet, greet, fight and frolic, they are also a microcosm of COMPLICATED HANDSHAKES.

    I don’t pretend to know where this whole thing started. Where or when we decided that we wanted an unwritten code between us that demonstrates and solidifies our union, at whatever level, when we meet. A complicated handshake to me means that you are a part of a special group or team and denotes a brotherhood, sisterhood or a bond. Its like a nickname. It means you belong. You have been in the trenches with each other and you value your fellow man’s presence in that brotherhood. While I have never served in the armed forces myself, I find it difficult to believe that there is a more applicable time for brotherhood and belonging, and the need for it, than war. (There are conflicting reports, but I can’t envision a WW2 complicated handshake. I just don’t believe it existed then.) Sure, Freemasons and Skull and Bones and all that stuff. They had their thing but I believe that was more sleight of hand than anything else. I also believe that Complicated Handshake was the product of two or more Bloods during the Vietnam War to solidify their fraternity within a fraternity, in the face of a society that would ask them to fight for a country that still denied  them certain human rights at home and abroad.

    Sports teams as well can be credited for many interpretations of the Complicated Handshake. Players on teams of fast paced sports like soccer or basketball employ a quick high five or hand slap. Football too. Baseball has its own thing. Baseballers have such elaborate hand rituals that they are sometimes hard to follow. In baseball players defense, however, they have little else to do during a game, nay a season. These styles and customs then trickle down to the fans, the public, for the same reason their appeal first came about. Brotherhood and belonging. Team.

   Let me meander around to the point. Whenever I meet someone new, as happens a lot with my employment, I am forced to guess which Complicated Handshake the person I am meeting would like to employ. The handshake my father taught me was the Classic. Wedge the thumbs. Fingers around the bottom of the other person’s hand. Grip firmly. Shake vertically. Repeat as needed. It is my experience that even when employing this handshake you will, say 75% of the time, receive a hand goose from the other guy trying to do the four-finger lock with the double shake. Escape or succumb to this, you will likely be met with a fist, held horizontally or vertically, bobbing in space. By the time you feel sorry for this dude for holding his mitt up and you decide to give him a “pound”, he has dropped his fist in anticipation of being “left hanging”. You then pound the empty air and he brings his up and you drop yours and you both smile and chuckle because you both look like idiots. How many times have you seen the ladies at the bar or in the office yelp “High-Five! High-Five!” while one of them holds their hand up waiting for the other. No REAL high five needs an announcement. It should be unspoken. The next sporting event you view on TV, watch what happens when your team scores. You will see, down on the ice, the field, the gridiron, and unspoken bond between players as they enact a ritual that goes unspoken, but speaks volumes. Then watch as the camera pans up to the big box seats to two septuagenarian team owners sharing 3-5 attempts at a mottled, age spotted High Five. Fingers akimbo. Faces hangdog. Colostomy bags on hips (yay for us! another million), as the High Five God shudders on his throne somewhere in a back room of the Sports Hall of Fame, or perhaps behind that long black wall in Washington, D.C.

The Throne


It is getting really hard to guess what the other person is up to when you greet them. I prefer to come over the top and shake regular, but again, others may employ a different strategy. I guess my point is, until we establish a bond that may warrant a secret, Complicated Handshake, when you and I meet next, lets do it the regular way.
  As I write this, I sit in the Happy Landing Lounge at YVR waiting for my younger brother to touch down on the 7:12 from Fort St. John.  You will see few complicated handshakes here in the airport. You will see those who have been apart for some time. You will see them smiling with their eyes and faces, arms open. Women hug, men shake hand, and maybe a loose arm around the shoulder.  For some folks its been too long. Others, maybe mother-in-law types, not long enough. If you were here right now, you would see two brothers meet each other in just a few minutes.  We’ll shake each others hands. Like our father taught us. Wedge the thumbs. Fingers around the bottom of the other person’s hand. Grip firmly. Shake vertically. Repeat as needed.

Oh! Here comes Shithead! In closing, I guess I should ask you, who’s hand do I have to shake to gedda drink around here?