A question popped up recently in the Channel 9 Coffeehouse which I naturally found very interesting because it was about me:
Posted by Cybermagellan
Rory,
I notice that throughout the "Meet da team" video that you knuckles people because of your deal with your hands. However you can touch the fabric thing in the womans office and say that it's OK. Considering that fabric can host dirt and other things in it's fibers (such as food, bacteria, mold, and viruses) how does that work?
Don't worry I have a OCD trait with objects stacking and making lines. It drives my girlfriend nuts.
The man who calls himself "Cybermagellan" is referring to a behavior of mine which was on proud public display in the aforementioned Channel 9 video.
The behavior in question is to "knuckle" instead of shake hands with people. I used to do "air-shakes" which were in every way exactly like a regular handshake except that they took place about ten feet from the person whose hand I was supposed to be shaking.
"Knuckles" is the new thing I'm doing. Instead of air-shaking, which created a lot of tension during business meetings and introductions, I form my hand into a fist and offer to bump knuckles with someone else's.
The reason behind doing knuckles and air-shaking instead of a regular handshake is simple: it is my well researched belief that most of you don't wash your hands after you poop, and that some of you don't even use toilet paper. By air-shaking or doing knuckles, I lower my risk of getting your fecal matter on my own hands. I also hug, which really surprises people, but think about it: you can't wipe your ass with your back, can you? And your back is what I'm touching when I hug you. Ergo, backs are OK.
What has confused Cybermagellan is that, in the video, while I was very serious about performing the knuckles maneuver, I had no problems whatsoever with licking a paper towel, or with touching cloth. The reason, in my mind, is that paper towels and cloth don't retain diseases the way hands do. Or the way metal does (and particularly the metal that's used to construct the poles you hang onto in vehicles of public transportation - if you can touch that stuff and live, then you could probably eat raw rat liver and suffer nothing worse than mild indigestion).
Now, I'm perfectly aware that it doesn't make sense that I believe that paper and cloth won't get me sick, but that skin, metal, and other materials will.
That, of course, is why people like me are called crazy.
Crazy doesn't make sense. That's why it's called "crazy." You can't expect any sort of obvious consistency in rules and conduct from someone who's nuts. They make the rules up in their own heads, and slowly refine these rules over their entire lifetimes, causing them to become stranger and stranger until, one day, they decide that the only way to live is to grow out one's thumbnails to several inches and dance around circles of shoes at noon and midnight to ward off the Subspace Table Monster.
"Subspace Table Monster?"
Yeah. That's right. Again: crazy.
The only way to test your ability to understand crazy is with the following phrase:
Apple baby diaper blossoms.
Did that make sense to you? 'Cause it sure did to me.
But, then, I'm a lunatic. Maybe not stark raving mad and ready to sand my nipples down to blend in with the rest of my chest so that I can stop staying up all night and wondering about why I have nipples in the first place, but definitely a little "off" if you know what I mean.
Cybermagellan - the answer to your question about why it's OK for me to fear one material but think another is perfectly all right is locked in that phrase.
Apple baby diaper blossoms.
Just say it to yourself over and over again until you understand.
Apple baby diaper blossoms...
Apple baby diaper blossoms...
Apple baby diaper blossoms...
Eventually, throw in a laugh here and there. Then let the laugh become the occasional cackle. Then let the cackle become an inability to control your bodily functions.
Welcome, sir, to crazy.
My inconsistencies should now make perfect sense.
You're welcome.