mabfan | Good Burpings

As a parent of newborn twins – well, now almost eight-week-old twins – I've occasionally gotten a little bit punchy. That happens when you don't get much sleep.

One of the things we've been saying to our kids when they finally burp is "Good burpings!" I'm not quite sure where it came from, but there are times when one of the kids needs to burp, and when she finally does, she lets out a belch that would have made her grandfather proud.

Anyway, I started to come up with this idea of a whole society where the standard greeting for both "hello" and "good-bye" would be "Good burpings!" So two friends running into each other, or even two strangers meeting for the first time, would wish each other good burpings. In a way, it does make sense, as you're wishing for the other to be able to eat and drink to their heart's content.

But then I came up with the idea that that they would offer each other a bottle and pop the bottles into each other's mouth. At that point, I realized that this would be a much different society, one in which there was an implicit trust among all.

So do I extrapolate this whole society (either the first or the second) and write a science fiction story about it?

And, more importantly, should I start wishing good burpings to all my friends?