Friday Fist Bump

Friday fist bump to everyone!

In the last 48 hours, I have found myself in two separate fist bump scenarios.

In the first, I was simply an observer...sitting inside a cafe with tinted windows watching the world go by...in particular, the world happening at the table directly in front of me, but on the other side of the tinted window. I watched a dude sit at the table, with an air of excitement...clearly waiting for someone...and that someone turned out to be a buddy of his...they greeted with a fist bump. The dude who arrived first pulled out a colorfully wrapped gift for dude number two, who opened it right away. Inside? Skater shoes. A late 30s straight dude gave his fist bumping straight dude friend just the sort of "post-skater airwalk-espue" black shoes one would expect.

And then yesterday, a man of color who I interact with at work about once every other month greeted me with the more traditional four-part handshake...I was cool for the first three of the four maneuvers, but then stalled and didn't produce my fist for part four: the fist bump. We laughed, and then he noted that the cool thing now is to go straight to the fist bump. Who has time for all the handwork foreplay leading to the fist bump? Apparently not the dudes of America.