So now that the Swine Flu is going to kill us all, people are figuring out how best to keep themselves from catching it. The best thing you can do is probably to wash your hands frequently. When you’ve used the bathroom, before you eat, that sort of thing. Wash with warm water and soap, scrub your hands pretty well for long enough to sing (to yourself, unless you’re quite certain you’re alone in the bathroom) the alphabet song. Rinse well and dry thoroughly. Easy as that.
Or so you’d think. Here, a commenter at another website I read gives some more advice:
I have read several versions of “proper handwashing technique.” But in addition to the basics (soap, water – warm if available , lather), there are a few other points:
1. Get paper towels ready before you start washing, especially if this means using a crank or lever to dispense them.
2. Use a paper towel to turn the water faucet off. Most likely every hand that has touched it to turn it on was in an unwashed state. You might want to use a (different) paper towel to turn the water fauce ON in the first place.
3. Use a paper towel to open the door to leave. (My workplace has finally gotten the idea and has started placing garbage cans outside of rest rooms so the paper towels can be discarded.)
4. If you’re in a bathroom where there are no paper towels…well, you’re screwed. Leave the water running (or, if you’re flexible like me, use your elbow to turn it off) and wait for someone else to open the door.
So what I wonder is, has this person actually been diagnosed with OCD? How many times does he click a light switch on and off when he enters a room? Does he coordinate his surgical masks with his outfit every day? I mean…I mean…seriously? You’re honestly going to use a paper towel to turn on the faucet before you wash your hands? If there’s no paper towels you’re seriously just going to leave the water running? And stand in the fucking bathroom for twenty minutes or however the fuck long it takes for someone else to come in? I’m all for good hygiene…but there’s “good hygiene” and there’s “a little crazy,” and standing in the goddamn bathroom waiting for someone else to open the door because you’re so terrified of germs qualifies as “totally bugshit insane.”
I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the constant unrelenting paranoia over germs. I don’t understand the mortal terror of touching anything that any stranger has touched. I don’t understand these things they’re putting by the shopping carts at the front of the grocery store these days, the Clorox sanitary wipes so you can disinfect the handle of the cart before you dare to touch it. I don’t understand the ads on TV with bad animation of germs on doorknobs and telephones trying to convince you that if you’re a mother who doesn’t spray every inch of her home with Lysol once an hour and slather her children in Purell every time they touch anything, it’s practically the same thing as poisoning your precious angels and shoving them in front of a bus.
Yes, you should wash your hands frequently. You shouldn’t deliberately expose yourself to the swine flu. You should take the same normal and sensible precautions you would always take against illness. But you should also have some faith in your goddman immune system.
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