High Five!

Ah yes, the latest video of awkward high fives, below. No matter how old you get, the awkward high-five is still excruciating.

However...

...has the “Slow Clap that nobody joins in on” replaced the “Unrequited high-five” as the ultimate embarrassing moment in a man’s life? As a young buck, nothing was worse than after a great play on the field, in front of hundreds of fans, you’d be running by a teammate and raise your paw to give him five, and he just breezes right past you. Your brain would lock up in absolute horror, knowing that EVERY SINGLE PAIR OF EYES IN THE STANDS happened to be looking at you right at that moment, and you would be forever remembered as “what a fucking dork!!” The girl you have a massive crush on saw it and will never speak to you again, as did your dad who now thinks “I knew this kid was a fag.” Now you know that everybody knows you jerk off 4 times a day, wet the bed til you were 8 and have the smallest dick in the history of earth. The Unrequited High Five. Fucking brutal.

But at least with that one you could, through a series of elaborate, incredibly thoughtfully choreographed steps, act like you were doing something else, like swatting a fly, or waving to somebody. My favorite was to act like I'm waving to someone, going so far as to smile, and then point into the crowd, act like I'm saying something, then laugh, shaking my head "oh, YOU!" But if you’re in a meeting and after Suzy Creamcheese finishes her presentation and you start the Slow Clap and nobody joins in, it’s tough to cover up. Everyone’s just staring at you. Woof.

On my “Things to Do Before I Die” list, which right now consists entirely of two items:

1) Flip table over in middle of important meeting, yelling “oh, FUCK this!”
2) Get an explanation from Peter Engel at NBC re: not explaining how Kelly and Jesse disappeared, were replaced by Tori and then reappeared again

I would like to add

3) Start off the longest, slowest building Slow Clap. I mean, look at the one below – from first slow clap to full-on frantic clapping is what, 10 seconds? I’m talking about kicking one off and then sloooooooowly building up, taking about 45 minutes before hitting full-on clapping. Everyone slowly folding in, maybe one a minute. More people finally succumbing with every minute. Would be amazing. All I ask in this world.

Mukluks: Jon Keller.