Dueling Laptops – Handshake

Well, we found ourselves trapped inside today avoiding the heat and humidity of a sweltering Wisconsin day. We took the plunge and dipped into the word bowl for another offering of Dueling Laptops. Today’s word, handshake. Please excuse and bear with me…mine got a little lengthy! Enjoy!

by Mary

Back in the late 1990’s, I tried my hand at Internet dating. I’d been a single mom for almost 20 years and I was nearing that feared empty-nest syndrome that occurs after devoting your life to your offspring. What would I do, I wondered, once I no longer had soccer matches to fill my nights and weekends? How would I get through my nights when I no longer had to lie wide awake at midnight waiting for my child to return back to the nest? How would I ever fill all those lonely minutes?

My friend had found AOL to be a hotspot of available men, so I decided to throw my spinster’s hat in the ring and give it a whirl. I filled out my profile and invented my AOL and Yahoo Personal’s handle. I became BlondyinWI…how fetching, how alluring, how young and happening. I tossed out a lighthearted ad proclaiming I was merely looking for someone slightly girthy to laugh with. I skipped the moonlit walks on the beach or that someone to grow old with thing…that seemed too large a commitment when I was really just looking for someone to entertain me.

Jerry

I sat back and waited. “You’ve got mail” proclaimed that yes indeed, there were a few catches out there waiting to be reeled in. The first was a guy named Jerry who wrote to say that he was quiet, but liked to laugh as well. Perhaps we could laugh together. Okay, sure. Let’s get together and laugh.

We decided to go to a movie. I met him at the local theater (taking no chances on having him pick me up). He told me he was driving a red older model convertible so I sat in my car waiting for him to arrive. I was slightly concerned when I saw an older model convertible pull up and park in the handicapped parking spot. He had not informed me that he was disabled. Not that it would have mattered, but I was still surprised. He got out of his vehicle and walked without issue into the lobby of the theater. I followed suit and went up to him with outstretched hand and introduced myself. We shook hands and proceeded to our movie.

In the ten minutes we had prior to the beginning of the show, I learned that the handicapped sign hanging from his mirror was actually his mother’s (he took her to get groceries once a week and just “hung onto it”). I learned that this was the first movie he’d been to in ten years and that I was his 13^th internet date (lucky 13) since he signed up for AOL Personals two months ago. I was already full of pity for No. 14. When he invited me to join him for a drink, I feigned a headache. A handshake and a promise to “be in touch” and I beat a hasty escape!

Jon

I brushed that date off to beginner’s luck or lack thereof. My next date was with Jon from Milwaukee. He proclaimed to be a police officer in Whitefish Bay. We met at the Horse & Plow Pub & Grill at the American Club in Kohler – again, not wanting to give away my address in the event this date did not produce that dream man to laugh my golden years away with.

We met at the bar having given each other general descriptions and providing our best photo taken in the most flattering light possible. He arrived 10 minutes late and tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Mary?” I turned in my bar stool with my hand once again extended for the introductory handshake and he grasped it in an effort to pull me toward him for a hug. Ah, yes, the manly hug. After a drink and a lively exchange of basic information, we headed to a booth for dinner.

I slid into “my” side of the booth and was most surprised when Jon slid in next to me rather than across from me. It was a sign of things come. Okay. I found it rather awkward to constantly be turning my head to talk to either his ear or his face, but I was willing to play the game. We ordered (why I remember that I had a pork schnitzel is beyond me) and consumed our dinners while sharing pieces of our lives with each other. I was giving the date a preliminary 7 out of 10 over dessert when I suddenly felt Jon’s hand not on my leg, but rather working its way up the inside of my leg. I firmly grasped his hand and returned it back to his “space” and suggested that it was time to end the evening. Apparently experiencing temporary hearing loss, Jon ordered another round of drinks from our waitress and promptly placed his hand under my shirt. Excuse me….pork schnitzel does not a feely earn. I excused myself (remember, I was imprisoned on the inside of the booth) to use the ladies room, threw a $20 bill on the table and ran like hell. No goodbye. No hug. No handshake.

Bruce

I have to admit that after Jon, I was convinced that somehow “ someone to laugh with” was actually code for “throw me down in public and have your way with me.” I was quite leery about continuing this dating game thing and let some time pass. I was still checking my inbox and had email conversations with a couple of guys, but I was not ready to actually meet any of them in person. There was one guy though that seemed like a nice enough guy who was a bit down on his luck. His wife had passed away several years prior and his daughters were encouraging him to try his luck at dating. We exchanged pertinent information and pictures of our kids and ourselves. While he wasn’t a looker, he seemed to have a nice, honest face and his kids looked a bit like him. “All right,” I thought. “It’s time to get back into the game.”

Bruce invited me to go to a play that his teenage daughter had a small part in. We met, once again at a bar, to have a drink and talk a bit before the play. I walked in the bar, looked around and didn’t see him so I sat down at one of the few available stools and ordered a drink. I felt hot breath on my ear and turned toward the bar patron sitting next to me. “Mary?” he asked. No. Dear God, no. This was not Bruce. This was not the nice honest face that asked me to attend his daughter’s play. This was some perspiration dripping, greasy slicked back hair styling, big old protruding lip smacking guy that seemed to know my name. He stuck out his hand and said, “Bruce.” I shook his dead fish of a hand and began to plan my escape.

The small talk at the bar was painful. I was not engaged in any of it. My brain continued to scream…RUN, RUN, RUN yet the more I talked to him, the worse I felt for him. He was everything I didn’t want in a man. He talked about his dead wife. He talked about his kid’s problems at school. He talked about the dates he had that didn’t work out. His eyes shone with hope. When the time came to leave for his daughter’s play, I couldn’t abandon him. I couldn’t kick that man anymore while he was down so I drove to the play and met up with him in the cafeteria of the school that the play was being held. He introduced me to his daughter…heaven help her, she looked just like her dad.

We sat down in the auditorium in the 2^nd row and he promptly placed his sweaty paw upon my hand. He turned and smiled at me. I squeezed out a slight grimace back his way. The play began. Within five minutes, Bruce was snoring open mouthed and I was trapped next to him with his spongy hand encasing mine. My mind was frantically attempting to devise an emergency, which would give me my much needed leave from this date, but yet I stayed to the end.

When the play finally and most mercifully ended, I suggested that Bruce just wait for his daughter rather than escort me to my car. However, that was not to be. Bruce grasped my fingers and walked me through the parking lot until we were standing next to my car. I stretched out my hand and thanked him for a lovely day and yes, he pulled me to him and puckered up those froggy lips and smacked one right on my mouth. “I’ll talk to you soon,” I promised as I rushed into my car. Ugh. Yuck. Phooey.

~~~

Now you’d think after all those unfortunate dates, I would have retired from the dating game and whiled away the rest of my days on bus trips to Branson or volunteering at the local library, but no. After another series of misfit wonders, I finally found my knight in shining armor on the information superhighway. He was looking for someone to just do stuff with and to laugh with. We went on our first date nix the obligatory introductory handshake. There was no handicapped parking, no groping and no froggy-lipped kiss. There was just a really nice guy who made me laugh. Oh yeah, we did go on that walk on the beach and he gave me a warm hug at the end of the night. I’ve been married to that guy for nearly 12 years now and while we grow old together, he still makes me laugh.

The Handshake

by Richard

To so-called “normal” people (you know who you are), a handshake is a pair of right (or sometimes left) hands briefly clasped together, possibly moving up and down, in a gesture of friendship, greeting or finalizing some sort of deal.

The practice developed, as I understand it, back in more primitive times when two individuals advanced toward each other and mutually showed that they were not bearing weapons by offering an open hand. Naturally, they still needed to be wary of anyone approaching with one hand outstretched while the other was concealed behind his or her back.

So much for normal people. As a longtime computer geek, I also see the “handshake” as something completely different — the ofttimes frustrating and frequently fruitless process of getting two different electronic entities to play nice with each other. (Curse you, Play Station 3!)

At no time in digital history was this exercise more audibly obvious than when attempting to connect to the internet via telephone modem. For those who don’t go back as far as the days of steam-powered computers, it went something like this:

beep! beep! beep! beep! beep! beep! beep! (Hello, this is Mr. Micron [pet name for my longtime computer companion]. Anybody there?)

whirrrrr! whirrrr! (Yeah? This is AOL. What do you want?)

warble, burble (I would like to access the internet through this telephone number, if that’s OK with you.)

gimble! vorpal! snicker-snack! (Let me check your credentials. Hmm. Looks like you’re on the list. I’ll try to connect you. Hold on.)

wheeeeeeee! ding! ding! ding! ding! hissssss! hisssss! (Thanks. I’ll wait.)

honk! honk! (Standby) hisssssssss! (Well that speed is no good) Hissssssssssssssssssss! (Nope, that one won’t work, either.) HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!! (Thaaat’s never gonna happen) stutter, stutter, hissss! (Looks like we’ll need to settle for this one. Does that work for you?)

klaatu barada nikto (Sure. I’m just grateful to be connected at any speed. Thank you so much.) 

waffle, baffle, zibble, zonk, bloof! (OK. You’re good to go. As always, remember that you may be disconnected without warning at any time, especially if you are cluttering up this phone line with an all-day download of the latest IE upgrade. Understood, Micron?)

bibbidi, bobbidi, boo. (Understood, AOL. Thanks again.)

Buzzzzzzz! (handshake completed)

I believe the whole handshaking process still takes place today whenever two devices need to connect. It’s just accomplished in the background, more speedily and efficiently — except when it’s not.

I last used the term when we had a cable guy come to the house because we were unable to get the box to connect to a new HD television set. I was aware that these devices, before they could hook up, had to reassure each other that they would never, ever consider, even for a microsecond, illegally copying intellectual property; but that assurance wasn’t happening.

“It seems like they’re not completing their handshake,” I helpfully volunteered to the technician.

The look he gave me began as a blank stare and finished with the one that said: “I guess this geezer is off his meds.” He made a non-committal noise and proceeded to replace the box.

As he left, neither of us extended a hand to seal the deal.