Keeping Germs at Bay

Do you sing "Happy Birthday" while washing your hands to ensure that you've washed for long enough? Do you insist on handling shopping carts only with antibacterial wipes? Do you open public restroom doors with paper towels? Do you clandestinely watch your friends' behavior to see if they are too germ-friendly? If you have answered "yes" to all of these questions, welcome to my world-the world of a germophobe.

The meaning of "germophobe" (fear of germs) has nothing to do with neatness (my pocketbook can attest to this), and everything to do with microscopic filth. In fact, if my anecdotal research is borne out, the neatest people are actually the biggest germ offenders. In any event, the possibilities of becoming clinically insane from fear of germs does exist for persons like me, and I have discovered that the only way to keep myself out of a straightjacket is to have tools for dealing with everyday life and the contagions that it presents. For individuals who wish to incorporate their germophobia into their everyday life, I have devised a little life plan for you.

Children

Children, God bless their hearts, are about as filthy as filthy can be. At any given moment they might jovially carry every super bug known to the Centers for Disease Control-all on their disgusting little hands. From nose-picking to jungle-gym licking to butt scratching, kids do it all, and have little concern with hand-washing. So what to do? When your child is slated to be around children in a public forum (a playground; an indoor gym; etc.) you obviously cannot demand that each child in your vicinity wash his hands. So if you elect to go to such bacteria traps, the best remedy is to watch out for clearly ill children. Sadly, contagiousness is not always apparent, but at a minimum, you can keep your children away from snotty-nosed kids. Should you observe an apparently sick child, the best thing to do is to scoop up your child and go elsewhere. If there are no children showing obvious signs of being ill, your child can play, but you should sanitize her hands with an alcohol-based gel immediately upon leaving, and wash her hands with very warm water and soap upon returning home.

Heathcare

One would think that doctors, nurses and other medical personnel would do the utmost to follow all appropriate cleanliness procedures. Alas, were that only true. My recent childbirths at a major Boston hospital demonstrated to me that hospital personnel, as a general rule, might be the biggest germ offenders apart from children. Ever had your blood drawn by someone wearing a Band Aid and not wearing gloves? This might make even average germ-relishing folk shudder. In such a case, it is imperative that you immediately request that the phlebotomist or nurse taking your blood put on fresh gloves. All medical personnel, regardless of Band Aids and open sores, are required to don gloves while handling blood, and you should enforce this on your own behalf or that of your loved ones.

When seeing a doctor who will look down your throat, eyes or otherwise be handling you or your body parts, insist that they wash their hands in your room; it does no good for her to wash them outside your room, and then turn the doorknob to come in. Doorknobs carry everything short of The Plague. In a run-in I had with a dentist once, he placed gloves on, manhandled my mouth, left the room by turning the door handle, and came back to work on my mouth. Horrified, I politely ask him to put on fresh gloves. He was offended, but was able to provide no excuse for his unsanitary actions. We parted ways after that visit.

Hospitals have signs posted prominently about the importance of hand-washing-ostensibly for patients to read. Unfortunately, the medical staff needs to learn to read their own admonitions. Most healthcare facilities now have alcohol-based sanitizers readily available every few feet. At a minimum, these should be used by all medical personnel before touching you, and this will often require your intervention.

Travel

Nothing can be more frustrating than arriving at a hotel room and finding the prior inhabitant's hair in your tub. It can make one want to don a Haz-Mat suit. Removal of said hair can be done with a hefty amount of toilet paper, but I won't kid you-it's not a pleasant thing to do.

Nearly everyone is aware that hotel-room comforters are no better than laboratory Petri dishes. You do not, unless a gun is held firmly to your head, ever want to lie directly on the comforter in your hotel room. For the most neurotic of germophobes, a traveling sheet and towel set is a good investment, but for average germophobes, the following are the minimal must-haves for successful travel: hand sanitizer; sanitizing spray; rubber or plastic flip flops; rubbing alcohol; and bottled water. The great thing is, none of these things occupies a great deal of space in your suitcase, and most or all of them can be purchased at your travel destination if you do not wish to pack them.

The alcohol is a necessary component for every hotel-room shower, because the shower curtain will undoubtedly attack you while you lather up. Accordingly, it is advisable to douse the inside of the shower curtain with a healthy amount of the alcohol before showering. Put on your flip flops and you're in business. Unless you wish to leave the hotel with a fungus growing on your foot, flip flops are indispensable. The hand sanitizer serves an all-purpose need-telephones, television remote-controls and sinks. The sanitizing spray is great for the door knobs.

Public Restrooms

If you are a person who must sit on the porcelain in order to be productive, you have to carry disposable toilet-seat covers with you-available at most pharmacies or medical-supply stores. These are light and fold up well, making them very portable. Occasionally such covers are available right in the restrooms, but you simply cannot count on that, which is why you should make the small investment up front. If, however, you are able to do your duty without making contact with the seat, I recommend the hover method. I will advise you that this method is not without the splash-back danger, which can be devastating to a germophobe.

Upon entering or exiting the stall, you mustn't make any contact with the stall's door handle, which is where paper towels and/or toilet paper come into the equation-use them liberally to handle doorknobs. Once you go to the sink, turn the faucet on and off (unless it is automatic) with paper towels as well. It does you little good if you wash up well, only to turn off the faucet with your clean hands. Finally, when you exit the restroom, once again, you must use a paper towel.

Restaurants

I do dine out, which makes about as little sense as anything I do, given the germ havens that are restaurants. Nevertheless, it is something that I continue to do in order to avoid "shut-in" status. As you might imagine, a restaurant's kitchen contains some of the most frighteningly unsanitary folk: its food preparers (with few exceptions). Between non-existent hair nets and gloves that not only handle the food, but blow the nose, there is little hope of mending what goes on back there.

My best advice with restaurants is to put what you cannot see firmly out of your mind (you did decide to go there, after all) and concentrate on what you can control: the table in front of you. The silverware is often placed directly on the table by the wait staff. You can either take it with you to the restroom and wash it (which will undoubtedly result in raised eyebrows, and quite possibly a shoplifting charge), or you can run some antibacterial wipes over it. Ditto for the rim of your glass, though this might be fruitless because the liquid is already in it. Finally, refuse to share your food with your company, unless you are happy to share their germs (this often comes up at dessert time). When dining with someone who is a casual acquaintance or co-worker, the best way to communicate your refusal to share is to simply say, "I don't want to pass on my germs to you." If you get the "Oh that's okay" response, and wish to maintain a relationship with the person, you may wish to cut a piece yourself and give it to the person-thus avoiding a strange fork dipped into your cheesecake. Your companion may suffer the consequences of getting the bacteria that resides in your mouth, but he asked for it!

General

The things that go on in a bathroom can only be forgotten with the assistance of the machine gun of cleaning products: bleach. I could not possibly do enough extol the virtues of bleach. Spraying "Clorox Clean-Up" or its equivalent in and around your toilet is imperative to keep nasty germs from thriving right where you seat yourself with regularity (or irregularity, I suppose, in some cases).

The kitchen is another place where bleach products are indispensable, the drain being a case in point. Spray the Clorox Clean-Up right down the drain before bed each night to kill what needs killing.

The advent of antibacterial wipes and alcohol-based hand sanitizer has helped germophobes cope with the world around us without having to carry a bathroom sink and soap with us. Though these products have been criticized as possibly helping to create an ultra-clean world where people overuse them, people must look out for themselves, and try to avoid getting or passing along illness. These products are therefore extremely useful to have at one's disposal at all times. A bottle of gel can be placed in your car, your pocketbook or briefcase, your workplace, and anywhere else you might frequent. Just keep in mind an important rule: if you have the opportunity to choose between the soap-and-hot-water route, and the gel route, a nice scrubbing is preferable . . . done to the tune of "Happy Birthday."