Yikes! Those Hands

It has been raining the past few days. Great weather for a book and a steaming mug of coffee by the window - not to walk through it though :-)

I was walking down to get some lunch the other day from a cafeteria at work and boom! I bump into this person after a long long time! I had worked closely with him for some time a few years ago and I had thought he had moved on a long time ago. And here he was!

We were about to shake hands and just before that, he sneezed! Before our hands met, there were a few more sneezes followed by loud blowing of the nose etc. etc. He grabbed a tissue did the ritual and oops into his trouser pocket went the humble, dirty piece of paper. Yikes! I thought. But, that's me because tons of people in the western world see this as a normal practice :-)

If it is that normal I always wonder why is there such a discrimination between tissue used elsewhere on the body to do a similar cleansing function and the one used to do the honors with the nose?

While I watched the tissue disappear and was struggling to correct the frown on my forehead that had very naturally appeared, came another jolt! The hand - he very casually thrust it out at me! ouch! ouch! ouch!

What is one to do when presented with such situations where good manners don't necessarily follow rather come in the way of other standards of personal body level criteria.

What did I do here? I simply dropped my wallet and picked it up escaping the hand shake :-)

I can state a million other examples of such situations....

People scratching their heads and using the very hands, people sweating giving you tight bear hugs, onions/garlic on the breath doesn't stop them breathing down your neck literally! Smelly socks take over the floor you work on when people go natural and walk around without their shoes! Ah! Put them back on for God's sake is what I want to tell them - but, only end up leaving the area :-)

And before I forget I have to take one last shot that burping freely and loudly on your host's face or your friend's is not the only means to establish our freedom!

Spoilt maybe I'm but, these do bother me and I wish people had the sensitivity to think of the others around them...

Till I see you again....be kind to the others around you - specially when it has to do with your body. Better still keep those dirty hands to yourself :-)