Caution: Germaphobes may be catching
Lori Borgman | Monday, Sept 28, 2009
One of the kids was sick recently, so now I am
two sneezes and one sticky grocery cart away from being a full-fledged
germaphobe.
I have anti-bacterial wipes in my purse, a tube
of sanitizing gel in the car and gallon-size pump bottles of Purell
in every room of the house.
I’ve cleaned the doorknobs, wiped down the landline
phones, the cell phones, all the remote controls and the light switches.
Oh yes, and the doorbell. And the steering wheel
to the car. And the handrail to the stairs.
I wouldn’t say I’m panicked, but I have Clorox
customer service on speed dial.
I have also suspended the 3-second rule. If food
falls on the floor, it stays on the floor. I have also written my
congressman demanding legislation making double dipping a capital
crime.
Am I paranoid, you ask? When Moammar Gadhafi addressed
the United Nations and said something about swine flu and then wondered
if fish flu would be next, some people thought he was doing stand-up
comedy. I thought he was talking directly to me. Swine flu, fish
flu, bird flu, turtle flu, cricket flu, weasel flu, they’re all
out there, lurking, just waiting.
The husband claims I crossed the line the fifteenth
time I watched the You Tube video of Health and Human Services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius demonstrating the proper way to sneeze, which
is to bury your face in the crook of the arm.
“OK, and then what?” the husband asked. “What
are you going to do with that stuff on your sleeve?”
“I’ll tell you what,” I snapped. “You’re going
to rip your sleeve off your shirt. That’s right, rip off your sleeve
and throw it away, because it is now germ infested and you don’t
want to wear it the rest of the day.”
“You think Sebelius ripped the sleeve off that
expensive red suit?”
“Definitely,” I said. “She just did it after the
camera stopped taping.”
Personally, the husband and I thought the tissue
method followed by washing your hands was good, but what do we know,
I’m not a secretary and he’s not a czar.
Besides, the biggest problem is public restrooms.
Any germaphobe knows you don’t want to touch the door handle because
a lot of people who didn’t wash their hands have touched it before
you.
It used to be that you could use a paper towel
to open the door, but now a lot of restrooms use hand dryers. (We’re
saving the trees by consuming electricity.) It’s difficult to knock
a hand dryer off the wall and use it to open the door.
Germaphobes are reduced to the pinkie technique.
You use your little finger to open the door hoping the surface area
of the finger is too small to attract germs. The only other alternative
is to pretend to fumble for something in your purse hoping someone
else will open the door, you can give it a quick kick before it
closes and slide on through.
Is all this prevention working, you ask? Absolutely.
Of course, it’s a little chilly wearing a shirt with both the sleeves
ripped off and you’d be surprised how many strangers get indignant
when you force anti-bacterial hand wipes on them, but other than
that, I am perfectly fine.
At least physically.
