There was a lot of fan mail in response to the “Vegas” blog. Most of the comments were about the prom vest. The majority of the other comments were about the germy Vegas hotel room. So, I figured, what better time to unveil the “Germ” blog that I have been working on?
[I am exceedingly passionate about this topic, so please forgive the length of this article. This thing is kind of like my opus.]
I am a germaphobe.
Doctors call it “Verminophobia.”
My eyes see the world like a black light sees a hotel room. Colors and textures give way to imaginary visions of the 10,000 bacteria per square inch that reside on almost everything we touch with any sort of regularity.
First, a little about me. I wash my hands anywhere from 30 to 1,378 times per day. I wash my hands after EVERYTHING…and sometimes after nothing at all…and occasionally before doing things.
Each time I wash my hands, I do it twice. After washing my hands, I walk around like a surgeon entering the Operating Room after he has just “scrubbed in.” I bring my own bedding (and disposable slippers) to hotels. I do not shake hands with people. I never carry paper money, and I wipe down my credit cards and cell phone daily. I use the bottom of my shirt to cover my hand when I open doors and I have bottles of disinfectant stashed all over my apartment, car and man purse.
I am not certain when this all happened, but I have a notion.
I grew up in a house with my mother, step-father, sister, two step-sisters and half-brother (it’s really tough to comprehend without a Tree Diagram). For me, there was no real sense of exactly how dirty my surroundings were. There were too many freaking people around to think about anything other than getting away from them so I could have some time alone away from the chatter. What I do know is that my germ phobia is getting exponentially worse with every passing day. I feel myself slipping into full-fledged insanity about germs. My germophobia seems to be directly proportionate to my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder-and they are both heading up and to the right toward the “Howard Hughes” section of the “Madness” graph.
Never mind that growing up my entire house was carpeted and that I cannot recall anyone ever taking their shoes off in our house (for more on carpet, see my entire blog devoted to this phenomenon “Carpet is NOT Awesome”). I think the event that started this snowball was seeing that community bar of soap in the ONLY family shower at my house (this may later resurface as an entire column of its own as well). If one put soap on a wash cloth before scrubbing one’s body, why would there ever be hair on the soap? After picking all of the hair off of that bar of soap, it’s clean, right? If one does not subscribe to the idea of wash cloths and washes himself “bar of soap on skin,” does the soap clean itself? I carried on as if this were the case for a while because I was unaware of any other options.
The day Jergens aired its first commercial for bottled liquid shower gel, my entire life changed. My thought process was that if you squeezed the soap from a bottle, the liquid inside would not be tainted with hair and skin cells from the other people using the community shower.
I had to have this new gel soap. I was so excited about it that when my mother bought me my first bottle, I kept it in my room. I began taking my own bucket of shower products into our family bathroom like a freshman in a college dorm (even though I was only 13). I found the autonomy very liberating, and much less disgusting than sharing intimate products with every member of my enormous family. The more I separated my things from the others, the more disgusted I became by the idea of sharing anything with anyone. Ever. Thus, I began wearing flip-flops in the family shower and feverishly longing for the day that I would have my own apartment (again, at age 13).
My obsession with cleanliness grew beyond the home and went worldwide when I hit high school and got my hands on a medical journal that highlighted some very interesting, very scarring information about one of my favorite childhood activities. This particular medical journal was doing a story about how bowling alleys have the highest concentration of fecal matter per square inch of any public place that is not a bathroom.
It makes sense really.
Think about your local bowling alleys. Have you ever gone into one and said “Wow, this is really classy…and as freaking clean as any place I have ever seen?” Me neither. But you probably DID comment on the fact that it was full of townies, secondhand smoke from Basic Non-Filter 100’s and that the décor had not been updated since the year bowling was invented and the place opened.
I do not mean to be judgmental (alright I do), but bowling joints are not exactly the hangouts of aristocracy.
The fecal matter thing comes from bowlers going to the bathrooms and not washing their hands. Then, those same bowlers head back to their lanes and proceed to high-five their friends and jam their shat-covered fingers into those lane-issued bowling balls that the owners of the establishments replace everyyyyyyyyyyy 30 years or so (once they crack and are rendered unusable). Do you think the staff cleans the finger holes of those bowling balls? Judging by the fact that “cleaning the shoes” consists of one quick dot of what we believe is antibacterial spray into the heel of each shoe; I would guess the balls are not shown much attention (what else is new? heh heh). And you thought those 23 year-old rental shoes were nasty. Those shoes are probably the cleanest things in the whole freaking Bowl-A-Rama.
Needless to say, I no longer go near bowling alleys. If my travels take me within 12 blocks of one, I choose an alternate route.
A year ago, I was invited to attend a very high-profile celebrity charity event at an Indianapolis-area bowling alley. I entertained the idea of attending due to my commitment to the charity, but had to decline last-minute because I was unable to obtain a proper sedative and full-body condom.
Pool Halls probably finish a close second to Bowling Alleys. Community pool sticks probably don’t last as long as lane-issued bowling balls, but I am pretty sure they are just as dirty (and for the exact same reasons).
Bars are nasty even though you really don’t touch anything. The most important thing to be aware of is your drink. I always make sure to ask for no straw and no fruit wedge because the last time I ordered a drink without such a warning, I saw the bartender wipe his brow and then immediately proceed to bare hand my straw and lime with his dirty, sweaty hand and toss them into my glass of top-shelf vodka. Suppose we are very lucky and bartenders fall into that percentage that do wash their hands before returning to work (which is impossible, because the soap dispensers in every bar worldwide are ALWAYS empty), their hands still get very dirty from bartending duties and brow wiping as the night progresses. The last thing I want is to pay $10 plus tip for a drink with a straw and lime wedge loaded with bacteria and ball sweat. If your drink ever does come with a straw and fruit slice, throw them out immediately. DO NOT drop the fruit in and SWISH IT AROUND. And please DO NOT put your mouth on that straw. You would not walk around letting strange people randomly stick their dirty fingers in your mouth, so why would you drink from a bar-issued straw?
Your shoes are filthy. You wear them everywhere. You step in dirt and mud puddles with them. You wear them into public restrooms and step into those pools of toilet water that drip down and land where your feet are supposed to be positioned (which sometimes causes us to pull out that “Karate Kid” pose while at the toilet). Occasionally, darn it, you step in dog doo doo. It’s pretty much impossible to clean everything out of all of those cracks on the bottoms of your shoes (and I don’t know anyone who even bothers), so there are MILLIONS of bacteria and remnants on those shoe bottoms. If you wear your shoes in your house, you are tracking this lovely stuff everywhere. Then, when you are lying on the floor, you are laying in what you tracked in with your shoes. Enjoy your nap.
Babies spend most of their time on the floor. Babies also like to put their hands in their mouths. Do the arithmetic.
While we are talking about kids, I have something that I need to get off my hands…I mean chest. When you take your kids to public places, please do not let them play with those toys in the toy chests at public establishments. Nothing makes me want to seizure more than the thought of little kids playing with those “trace the bead across the maze of wires” toys (pictured above). Newsflash, those toys have not had so much as a disinfectant wipe run over them since the day they were taken out of their respective boxes. Further, the toys at the doctor’s office are probably the worst. The kids that play with the toys at the doctor’s office are slapping flu and other germs all over everything. Think about the reasons those kids are at the doctor’s office in the first place---they are sick. I think I feel a cough coming on now.
Ladies, are you disgusted by the urine-soaked floors in public restrooms? Of course you are. So, why would you lay your purses on those very same floors? Then, to make it worse, you take your urine-soaked purses and place them on tables, car seats, kitchen counters and beds. Yummy.
Movies theaters are nast (not nasty, nast…it’s a word I use when things are many degrees beyond nasty). It’s a darn good thing that the lights are kept very low in movie theaters. There is a reason for this that has nothing to do with seeing the screen. If you saw a movie theater with the lights on, you would wear a full-length rain coat to the movies…like I do…with the hood up. If you ever end up with head lice and cannot seem to figure out where you got it from, ask yourself if you were at a movie theater recently.
Further, they should require women to be on birth-control before entering a screening room and I don’t care to further explain why.
To close, when you get home from a movie theater, bowling alley or pool hall, and if you didn’t wear a rubber outfit that can be hosed down and left outside, then you should just burn whatever outfit it is that you did wear before going back into your house (or car for that matter). You don’t want to bring those germs home to your couch (where you take naps face down).
Pets are cute, but really gross. Don’t let your cat get on your kitchen counters and tables. Fluffy just shat himself in the litter box (we hope) and then dropped it as if it were hot on your counter and table where you later prepared and ate that night’s meal. Maybe you like smeared ass remnants on your food. If so, that’s cool. Your non-pet-owning guests may not be as open to the idea.
If you don’t usually cook in the bathroom, don’t let your pets pounce around on food preparation surfaces. Also, please refrain from petting your animals while preparing provisions; and if you must pet them, please wash your hands before returning to cooking tasks. I don’t enjoy my grilled chicken topped with dog hair and drool as much as I used to. Write that down.
If you absolutely have to use the bathroom at a gas station, be careful. Don’t touch anything. If the Shell station where you are requires a bathroom key, throw on a plastic glove before you grab it. If you don’t have a box of latex gloves in your car, get some. That piece of wood with key attached that says “Men’s Restroom” is one big stick of poop bacteria. Think it through, motorists young and old, fat and skinny, clean and dirty get hopped up on fast food and bad coffee and then stop off to explode in those Shell station bathrooms. Many of these people grab the key, use the facilities, forgo hand washing and then return the key with their own personal brand of germs. Just pee your pants in the safety of your own vehicle…seriously.
Swimming pools give me “The Shakes.” Just because pools are treated with chemicals DOES NOT meant that they are germ-free. On the contrary, they are full of bacteria. Chemicals are generally applied to pools once a week. This treatment will kill almost all bacteria living in the pool and make it sink to the bottom where it will be vacuumed up. But, as soon as someone jumps in the day after the treatment and sweeping takes place, the pool instantly begins to refill with bacteria.
Public pools are a joke. Have you ever peed in a pool? Of course you have, and you are an adult. Now, think of all of the little kids at the pool. Those kids don’t do much else other than pee while they in the pool all day. And then, you jump in and swim right through those clouds of urine with your mouth open. If you like mouthfuls of unfamiliar urine so much, you should just put your face directly into public toilets (hey, no sunblock required). Something about a bunch of strangers stripping down, jumping in, splashing around and rinsing all of their crevices into one collective puddle does not make me want to put so much as a toe in that bitch.
The following things are dirty and should be washed:
1 – Car keys
2 – Credit cards (you hand them to strange people so they can swipe them for you. These people just came back from the restroom, where they did not wash their hands)
3 – Doorknobs
4 – Car steering wheels
5 – Car gear shifters
6 – Car door handles
7 – Computer keyboards
8 – Pens (especially the “community” pens chained to the table at your bank, and those next to the “sign-in” book at that wedding you just went to)
9 – Phones
10 – Grocery cart handles
11 – Refrigerator/Freezer handles (and basically any handle that is built for your hand to grab on to)
12 – Restaurant menus
13 - Your DAMN hands
Be aware of coins and paper bills. Thousands of people handle currency before it runs its life cycle. Have you even been sick and handled money? Think about it.
I am really excited for money to go 100% electronic, but would this mean homeless people and ”Vietnam veterans” would start begging for donations via debit and credit cards, or just asking for the shirt and shoes you are currently wearing? Would this also mean that the “Firefighters” holding fireman hats and rubber boots and knocking on your windows at stoplights would be asking for the same types of donations? If so, those donation helmets and boots would fill up pretty rapidly. Some things to ponder.
(One quick thing to also give some thought to: we are far too trusting of these “stoplight donation collectors.” Just because a group of people threw on matching T-Shirts and decided to stand on the medians of busy intersections in your city does not mean that the money you donate is actually going to the cause listed on the sign on the bucket. I mean, the construction paper sign with the cause written in Magic Marker does look super official, but try not to be fooled. Back in high school, my friends and I executed a fake “Fire Station” fund raiser in the middle of a busy intersection in the next town over from where we lived. We fooled hundreds of drivers into donating $241.78 in spare change into the stolen rubber boots we were holding over a 5-hour period. I am only joking, but for a second there I had you thinking a lot more seriously about all of the “stoplight causes” you have donated to in your lifetime.)
The next progression in my story occurred at age 21. The men’s bathroom at my old workplace had one stall and one urinal, allowing you to see the shoes of the person next to you. On several occasions, I ended up in the bathroom at the same time as an employee from my department who, to my knowledge, owns only one pair of shoes. Every single time we were ever in the restroom together during my 5 years with the company, he left without washing his hands. I knew this for a fact because if I was still at the urinal, I would never hear the water run. If I was at the sink first, I would have to move for him to get past the sink and out the door. After handling his wedding tackle, the last thing he touched in the bathroom is the first thing I touched with my post-wash hands…the doorknob. I became conditioned to use the paper towel that I dried my hands with to open the door.
To add E-coli to injury, this “non hand washer” often spent time in my office when I was on vacation or out sick (or if I called in “disinterested,” which I became famous for). When I was out of the office, people would need access to files on my computer, so “NHW” and the other members of my department would get on my computer and act as my stand-in. I still have nightmares about “NHW” heading straight from the bathroom without washing his hands and into my office where he would proceed to smear his schlong germs all over my doorknob, keyboard, mouse and phone. Knowing this, the night before taking a vacation day I would disconnect my “Todd only” keyboard and mouse and swap it out with replacement hardware that I had stashed behind my desk. If I called in “sick” or “disinterested” I was screwed. Unplanned days off meant 2 hours of disinfecting everything in my office before settling in for a long day of work dodging, EBay bidding and napping in my swivel chair.
Wash your damn hands. Wash them thoroughly and wash them often. If you ever see someone leave a restroom without washing their hands, you have my permission to call him out. Embarrass him. Get angry. You should be angry. If you do check that jerk, he will think twice about ever skipping the sink again because he will fear that the crazy bastard that almost started a fight with him for doing it last time might be watching. Consider this your responsibility. It’s up to you all. If you don’t speak up, these perpetrators will walk out of bathrooms with germs and bacteria from their nether regions on their hands…which you will be shaking minutes later when your girlfriend introduces them as her old friends from college. This happens everyday unfortunately.
CNN released a study in September 2007 stating that 30% of men surveyed DID NOT wash their hands after using the restroom. The study reported that 12% of women exhibited the same behavior. A second, non gender-specific study stated that 1 out of every 6 people do not wash their hands (16.666%). What does this make you think about that little “Employees must wash hands before returning to work” sign? It’s terrifying. What gets really scary when you think about it is that something prompted the businesses to start reminding their employees in the first place. I am asking right here and now for police officers in every public restroom worldwide. We need someone holding these lunatics accountable.
Another thing, public restrooms in America send me to the brink of nervous breakdowns. It’s almost pointless to use the sinks in these bathrooms to clean your hands. Studies show that the sinks are sometimes one of the dirtiest things in the entire restroom (being that they are the first things people touch after getting busy). Sometimes, I would just rather pee my pants. And once again, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE REFILL THE SOAP DISPENSER????
F me.
My first trip to Europe was amazing. Not surprisingly (and at the same time, very surprisingly) one of the things that I remember most about the countries I visited was that the public restrooms were immaculately clean. Of course, this is because there are attendants in these public restrooms cleaning 24 hours a day-and it costs a few Euros to use them (about $0.75 USD). The idea of paying to use a public bathroom seems absurd to people whose only experience with public bathrooms has been in America.
The public facilities in Europe are spotless. The attendants are wiping and disinfecting for the entire span of their respective shifts. Once they finish cleaning every inch of the entire room, they repeat the cycle. The attendants stop only to grab the occasional coin from a paying customer. Not only were these European restrooms clean, they were pristine. I would rather use a public restroom over there than use the lieu at any of my friend’s apartments. I mean, you could eat in these joints. They are cleaner than any room in your house. The bleach smell is heavier in these places than it is in any of the Mexican restaurants that you thought held the title.
When is America going to adopt this public bathroom attendant/cleaner idea? The guys in the dirty restrooms at nightclubs that hand you a paper towel (assuming you wash your hands), splashes you with Drakkar, cleans nothing and asks for a tip is not getting it done for me.
If you don’t like people rubbing their dirty shoe bottoms on you, then don’t ever lay on the floor. If you don’t make a habit of letting people sit on your face, then don’t make a habit of taking naps face down on a couch. You probably wouldn’t go #2 in your bathroom, forgo wiping, and then go sit on your couch-so why do you let your pets do the exact same thing? Give careful consideration to these things and others just like them.
There is a good rule to live by: If you touch it, they touch it (don’t go to the bad place on me). Public places do not get cleaned all that well, so be aware of things that you touch. Be especially aware of handles and other things that are actually designed for people to put their hands on. I was out yesterday in a public place that had a doorknob so worn that the silver was rubbed off and you could see the brass beneath it. That looked like decades worth of germs to me.
DO NOT shake hands. My ex-girl (it didn’t work out) got very angry when she would introduce me to people that she knew because I would stone them with a wave and leave them with their hands hanging out. My research shows that a large percent of her friends probably bypass hand washing. Screw shaking their dirty hands, I bite my nails when I get nervous AND when I get bored. Add that up.
Often times when we are in places where we are meeting new people, it is some sort of party. At parties, there are generally trays of finger food for everyone at the entire party to grab and eat. Be aware of people not using toothpicks to pick up these hors’ dourves. I see a lot of people grabbing cheese squares and crackers, jamming them (and their fingers) into their mouths and then reaching right back for seconds with their saliva-covered hands. Play it safe, eat at home.
I am pushing for America to adopt the bow that many Asian nations use as a way to greet one another. It is also common in many places in Asia to remove your shoes when entering someone’s house. Hopefully, my columns change the world like I have been anticipating and some of these policies get implemented in America. Otherwise, I am moving to Asia.
I realize that I am extremely neurotic. Really, I just want to raise awareness. Just because I spend my days standing in one place with my hands held out away from my body doesn’t mean you all have to let germs paralyze you as well. Just be prepared for me to completely stone your next handshake offering. I will instead politely step back and bow.
Go wash your hands.
You’re welcome.
-Todd
