'70s slapping, dental dilemma and a new waste of time

Dear Rachel,

The high-five is timeless – the simplest, most primal way to celebrate with another human being. I can just imagine two mammoth hunters bringing down a mighty beast, turning to each other, and slapping the ol’ hand skins together. Yet I just learned from my grandpa that he was alive for the onset of the high-five. (And not because he is ancient either.) Is this really a modern invention? What other lies am I living with?

– Up High, Down Low

Dear Fiver,

Yup, the modern high five originated in the late 1970s in a baseball game. I mean, sure, with billions of people on the planet, someone smacked someone else’s hand at some point. But those weren’t televised. Let’s just be happy it’s the high five that took off and not the coach/athlete butt slap.

– Give me some skin, Rachel 

Dear Rachel,

I see that people want to take fluoride out of our water. Do you think it’s a dental insurance company making its move to sell more insurance? Maybe a bunch of people who want to open a silver mine to make fillings like in the old days? More dental offices to fill the vacant shops downtown? I know you have a mouth full of answers.

– Tooth Decay

Dear Ginger Vitis,

Way more than the fluoride in our water, I want the cadmium out of my Lindt chocolate. Like, seriously. I have bars of the stuff from the last time it was on sale after a major holiday. I eat some every day. The fluoride gives me strength to resist my chocolate cavities, but I have no defenses against the heavy metals in my sweets. So I’m pro fluo. Although, if de-fluoriding can bring jobs back to Silverton, maybe that’ll ease the housing woes.

– Grinding my molars, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

Everyone I know is now jumping over to Bluesky, some newfangled social media thing that’s like Twitter but not. They’re posting on Facebook about their new accounts on Bluesky, and never have I felt like the world is actually just made up and nothing is real. Are you on Bluesky? Should I be? What is even happening?

– Sky High

Dear Airhead,

Everything old becomes new again. There is nothing new under the sun. Bluesky will become a Right Wing means of controlling information, just like Twitter and Fox did before that, just as my Uncle Al did before that. It’s no different than the high five; I promise you there is some medieval ghost lingering about and telling all their friends, “Hey, we were doing that in 871, before it was cool!”

– Inimitably, Rachel