GERMAPHOBE

I am living proof that the mass media provides considerable influence over the way we live our lives. In this instance, I am talking about the fact that I have become a germaphobe.

In public restrooms, I craftily work to figure out how to open the door without actually having to touch the handle after I have washed my hands. I can’t actually bring myself to open the door with paper towel in hand, lest I look like a total and complete germaphobe-freak-weirdo to everyone as I leave the restroom. I like the doors that push out so that you can just bump your hip into them without actually having to lay your hands on the door to make it open. For those doors that push in, it is always a good thing when someone comes in the restroom and pushes open the door just as you are getting ready to leave, thus ensuring no hand contact will have to occur with your clean hands and the dirty restroom door. It also skeeves me out when people use the restroom and then don’t wash their hands. I have been known to give people the ol’ stink eye as they exit the toilet stall, then proceed to head right out of the restroom without a thought to washing their hands. BLAH! I can’t imagine going out and picking up my cheeseburger and fries after just having been in a public restroom without washing my hands.

I keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in my car. Anytime I have been shopping at Wal-Mart or Kroger or Cub’s or any other public establishment (especially when I have been pushing a shopping cart), I immediately come out to the car and use the hand sanitizer. My kids even know that as soon as we get back to the car, I am going to give them each a squirt of sanitizer - - I always try to get Aleita first - - she is the thumb sucker, and as soon as she gets into her booster seat in the car and gets comfortable, the thumb goes in the mouth. I just try to prevent a few thousand germs from doing the same.

I have heard experts say that because of all the anti-bacterial products and hand sanitizers we have now, we are actually doing ourselves a disservice because our bodies never get the chance to develop an immunity to certain germs and bacteria, so when we are exposed, we get very sick instead of our bodies being able to fight it. Even with this knowledge, I still continue with my germaphobe ways.

Any fellow germaphobes out there? Raise your hands! (Just please make sure they’re clean first!)