'Matter of Laugh or Death,' the award-winning humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

HAND-SHAKING DILEMMA DURING COLD & FLU SEASON

This has been an especially bad cold and flu season. It seems everyone I know is either very sick with a cold or the flu, or very sick with worry after waiting too long to get a flu shot and now there’s not enough vaccine to go around.

So far this year I haven’t come down with the flu. (With my luck I probably just jinxed myself by typing that sentence.) But a few weeks ago I did have a pretty nasty cold. Suffering with that cold raised a very important question: What’s the proper thing to do about shaking hands?

Since I’m in sales, I shake hands with people all the time. It’s become second nature. My daughters don’t even notice anymore when I greet them at the breakfast table each morning with a hearty handshake and a cheery, “Nice to see you again. How’s business been for you guys?” And at Mass each Sunday, as I make my way through the entire church, shaking everyone’s hand during the “Sign of Peace,” the priest often has to announce over the PA system, “Um, Bill, could you please go back to your pew? We’d like to finished sometime today.”

For many years I thought people caught a cold by not wearing a hat and scarf. (I’m not saying my mom was lying to me—I just think she was misinformed.) Nowadays modern medicine has proven that the second most effective way of spreading a cold is by shaking hands. The first most effective way, of course, is to sneeze directly into someone’s face from two feet away. But I’ve learned over the years that sneezing directly into the face of a potential customer reduces your chances of making a sale, so I avoid it whenever possible.

I’ve come up with a list of options to avoid making other people sick when you have a cold and find yourself in a hand-shaking situation. Unfortunately, none of them are likely to lead to a sale.

• As the other person reaches out his hand, raise both your hands in the air, as if being robbed at gunpoint (or going through French Army basic training), and say, “No, no, don’t shake my hand. I’ve got a cold.” This leaves the other person standing there with his hand hanging awkwardly in mid air, and thinking to himself, “Why’d you come to my office spreading germs, ya jerk?”
   
• As the other person reaches out his hand, you reach past his hand and grab his forearm, touching only his shirt and not his skin. This leaves him thinking that you are drunk.
   

• As the other person reaches out his hand, step forward and embrace him with a big hug, putting your chin on his shoulder so you can cough and wheeze your nasty germs safely behind him. This leaves him thinking you are sexually attracted to him.
   
• As the other person reaches out his hand, sneeze directly into his face from two feet away. On the bright side, he will instantly forget all about hand-shaking etiquette.
   
• Make a placard out of cardboard and hang it around your neck with a string. On the placard write in big, bold letters: “Unclean! Unclean!”
   
• Reach out and shake his hand as usual, then immediately say, “Oh, you might want to wash your hands sometime between now and the next time you pick your nose, because I’m sick as a dog and I just put about 8 billion cold virus molecules on you hand.”
   
• Reach out and shake his hand as usual, and say nothing about your cold. When you sneeze or sniffle a few minutes later, go on the offensive by accusing him of giving you a cold.
   
• Tell your boss that you’re out making sales calls, but actually stay home and watch “The Price is Right” and “Oprah.” You’ll have just as good a chance of making a sale with this option as with any of the other ones.

©2004