One trip to the men’s room proves the value of hand-washing
Originally published in May 2005, The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colo.
Our older daughter knows the rule because my wife has repeated it over and over and over: Wash your hands when you come in from outside. Do it with soap.
The reasons are endless. Our girl has touched dirt that sheep have walked on. She has handled swings previously gripped by nose-pickers. She has picked up trash. She has petted strange cats.
My wife is crazy, I think, her priorities out of whack. She loses her keys four times a day, but never forgets to make sure our kids have clean hands.
The rule I make for myself is more relaxed: Run my fingers under a cold tap when I get a chance. No big deal if that has to wait until after I make myself a sandwich.
But a visit to a public men’s room makes me rethink that.
Unlike my Lisa, it seems countless mothers (not to mention fathers) fail to teach their children the most basic rules of personal hygiene.
Without fail, if I step into a restroom with three men at the urinals, at least one of them will finish up and head straight out the door without so much as glancing at the sinks. Of course, he’ll touch the door with those unwashed hands on the way out, which inevitably means someone else – maybe someone who did wash his hands – will touch that same spot and something will rub off.
It’s almost like every time you touch a door, you also touch everything everyone who has ever gone through that door has touched. Such realizations inspire me to use my shoe-protected foot to shove open doors whenever possible.
The unwritten rule of the men’s room is that you don’t look directly at other guys at the urinals, particularly if you’re at one yourself. This limits what you can do with your eyes; you can examine the wall, or you can kind of glance around the room.
Once, when I had chosen the “glance around the room” option, I saw an unusual sight in one of the stalls (no unwritten rule about looking at those, as long as there’s a door and it’s closed): A pair of shoes with feet in them, dark socks, and bare legs from there up to where the door cut off my line of sight. There were no pants bunched around the socks.
While washing my hands, I saw those legs stand up in the stall, then heard the sound of something being taken off the coat hanger in there. A pair of pants legs lowered into sight, and the fellow slipped them on, removing his shoes for the time it took to put his legs back into the pants. So, basically, he had chosen to hang up his pants rather than risking wrinkling and soiling them on the bathroom floor – which is more trouble than I’d go to, but I respected the effort.
The fellow stepped out, and I knew right away he was a white-collar, on-his-way-up-in-the-world professional, very neat and crisp. Wearing a tie. But I only actually saw him for about five seconds, because he headed straight from the stall to the exit.
I was flummoxed. Astounded, even. This guy worried about keeping his pants pristine, but didn’t consider his own skin? Man, that’s weird.
Maybe it’s a sort of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” thing, except that instead of being taken over by outer space pod people, we’re being infiltrated by post-potty soap scorners. Look around any populated room and they’ll be there, taking snacks from the same tray you are, drinking from the same water fountain, shaking your hand when you meet them. But you won’t know who they are unless you end up in the bathroom at the same time.
Girls, don’t forget to wash your hands when you get back to the house.