How germophobic are you?

In My Humble Opinion
41

The real test is whether you will eat samples off the trays at the supermarket. I don’t mean where an attendant gives you the sample in a little paper cup but where they dump, for example, a bag of chips and a container of a new salsa for you to try. I do if I don’t actually SEE someone else fingering all the chips or whatever. Not rational I know but that’s how much of a germophobe I’m NOT.

At my house I have a 5 second rule for dropped food. If I can get it away from the dog within 5 seconds, it’s still safe to eat.

42

I’m a two. I wash my hands and sthethoscope often at work. I’ve eaten street food in over forty countries provided that the stall seemed clean, busy and served something I wanted to eat. I don’t worry about toothbrushes, and chuckle at the available paper toilet seat covers Americans feel compelled to use on public toilets.

43

Does hand-sanitizer work better if you rub it on and then light it on fire?
I must have ridiculously clean hands while at work…

Not seeing the “two scale” issue until after I posted my “probably less than one” comment… Yeah, probably still less than one. Not dead yet!

44

Although we’ve all had dinner with at least one, hopefully you can find a more pleasing date than a bovine posterior. :wink:

45

Oh, I never thought twice about eating samples at the grocery. Hmmm. I am probably a one on the original scale. Public toliets don’t bother me as long as I don’t see anything. I work with the most ridiculously germophobic people on this earth, and my biggest pet peeve has become the people that use a paper towel to turn on the faucet…another to turn it off…and another to open the door. Geez, I wonder why everyone in the office always seems to be sick :rolleyes: . I actually had someone ask me what the point of washing my hands was if I was just going to touch the filthy door handle.
I have been somewhat grossed out by some of the things I have read in this thread, though. Picking hairs off a licked oreo, and going right back at it? Drinking coffee that has been sitting out for 3 days? Eating food off of dishes that have had water run over them. Echhh.

46

With day-to-day germ stuff I’m about a 1 or 2, but I am very careful when it comes to food preparation. Germs on my hands and skin I couldn’t care less about; pathogens in my stomach I can do without, thanks.

Certain other things do gross me out, though - number one being dogs licking my face. I love dogs, but let’s face it, they eat other dogs’ shit. I don’t want that on my face.

47

I’m pretty low on that scale. Left to my own devices, apart from the basics of washing hands after going to the toilet and throwing out food when it starts to smell wrong, I’m not much fussed. Me and my wee brother used to pretend-fight with our dogs for the raw meat from the butcher’s van when we were kids, so yeah we’ve probably been exposed to everything.

48

I’m probably a 4 or 5 under the new scale.

I don’t think about germs that often, have no trouble with public toilet seats, follow the 10 second rule (actually, it’s more like 5 seconds for me) in my own house (though not outside of it), clean cat boxes, scoop dog poop, groom horses, etc. I replace my toothbrush only after an illness or when the bristles get uncomfortable, and I leave it out on the counter. I don’t have a problem eating pizza that’s been out all afternoon (although I won’t eat it if it’s been out overnight–but that’s probably because the dogs would get it if I left it out overnight)

I do wash my hands frequently and always before eating or preparing food. I don’t leave frozen chicken out on the counter to thaw (I thaw it in the fridge), I don’t reuse the chicken thawing plate without putting it in the dish washer first, and I’m pretty careful about cleaning my counter tops. I don’t use the same cutting board for frozen/thawed meats as I do for veggies. I don’t use a wooden cutting board, but that’s more a matter of what I happen to own.

49

Ditto.

50

This is your extreme end of the scale? was my reaction, too.

Where’s “will use the seat in a public restroom without wiping it off first—even if there’s something that needs to be wiped off”?

Where’s “follow the ten-second rule on food that hits the dirty ground outside”?

Where’s “will rinse your toothbrush off and use it after it falls off the edge of the sink into the toilet”?
Anyway, for what it’s worth, I was a lot more germophobic as a kid than I am now. There used to be no way I would ever eat something that had touched someone else’s mouth. I remember being horrified once when I saw someone put the stirring spoon back into the Kool-Aid after he had used it to sip a taste from.

For whatever reason, I’ve mellowed out a lot. Nowadays I’m probably what you originally described as a 1 (though it’d depend on the floor). I wonder if discovering kissing had anything to do with it. You can’t do much kissing if you’re a germophobe.

51

I’m a negative 5. I was cleaning out my car today and found a mushed Skittle under my seat covered in fuzz and some dirt and I just popped it in my mouth! Yum, Tropical!

52

I wash my hands a lot these days, but it’s mostly because the system for clocking in and out at work has a hand scanner and somebody is always coating it with a heavy residue of slimy lotion. If my hands feel nasty, I wash them. If I’m about to cook, I wash them. If I just took a shit, I wash them. I don’t do that fake washing crap that 80% of the germophobic women in the public bathrooms do, either; I’ll spend a good minute with soap lathering up my hands because that’s how germs are removed, damnit.

I don’t pay much attention to the state of the toilet other than “clean enough to use” vs. “looks like someone’s ass exploded all over the toilet seat” before I decide whether to use that toilet. I rarely wipe off the toilet seat, much to my chagrin when I forget in an area where there are a lot of seat pissers. I don’t wash my hands as often after I pee when at home.

I don’t cover my toothbrush. When I get sick, if I haven’t used the toothbrush for 3 months, I’ll just rinse the toothbrush with mouthwash before it gets a final rinse. (There’s enough alcohol to sterilize it to my liking.) I don’t use hand sanitizer most of the time, because it’s a major reason why we’ve got SuperBug type germs out there. I share my toothbrush with my SO and stopped really caring about the germy bits; whether I like it or not, a toothbrush left at his place will end up getting used by him, and, besides, his mouth is no dirtier than his penis.

I’m a little paranoid about heavily synthetic-based chemical content, and for good reason. Having an asthma attack or a histamine reaction to cleaning products is no fun, so I avoid using the stuff that causes me problems. This means no bleach, limited use of Lysol and Windex, and an overall dependence on things that have citrus oils and other things that don’t make me feel sick. I also am a bit grossed out by the idea of accidentally ingesting even tiny amounts of cleaning products, so I thoroughly wash my hands after cleaning the house if I feel it’s necessary. But my kitchen is so clean I can normally pick food up off the floor and not feel bad about it.

Speaking of food, there have been times while living in South Florida where I’ve put a bunch of pasta into a pot and then realized there’s little pasta-eating bugs in the pasta. I figured that, since I’m boiling the stuff, they’re not going to survive or make me sick. I just toss the unused portion away that I’m not cooking.

I think that probably makes me a 3.

53

I’m about a 4-5 on the scale, I’d say.

Food that falls on the floor is right out - we just call the dog (we call her “the Hoover”) to clean it up. She isn’t allowed to lick faces or dishes.
We don’t share toothbrushes (but we do share hairbrushes).
Only wipe the seat if there is something visible. I don’t “hover”.
I wash hands with soap and water after cleaning biological/chemical stuff and before touching food and people.
The cutting board is kept clean by wiping over - it’s washed with hot water and detergent if I’m cutting up meat.
Leftovers and such go into the fridge for 24 hours - if not eaten, they’re in the bin. I don’t leave them out. They don’t usually last that long, anyway.
Having kids really mellowed me out about germs, I guess.

54

I’m a 1. I wipe public toilet seats if there are visible drips but otherwise just sit on down. Never use that hand sanitizer stuff, ever.

I’m pretty good about not putting spoons back into peanut butter, sour cream, etc. if they’ve been in my mouth, but I can be lax about food stuff otherwise. Here’s an example. Yesterday I opened a cryo-sealed pork loin, cut it in half, brought half to my father-in-law’s house, and cooked it for dinner. No problem there. But today I took out the other half which had been in my fridge and noticed that one end of it was, well, green. I cut the green end off and cooked the rest.
(I promise to report back if that turns out to have been a mistake.)

55

I could not finish reading this post because I started to gag, literally, and was genuinely afraid I would throw up.

56

I’ve somehow managed to go my whole life without needing damp fingers to go through papers. If I see someone licking their fingers and going through papers, I will not touch those papers nor ever shake hands with that person, because it’s disgusting. Not just because the person has dried spit on their fingers, but because it says something to me about their cleanliness in general–for example, they don’t mind putting fingers that have just been handling god-knows-what in their mouth. And having damp fingers means they pick up more dirt and other things than if they were dry. Things like that make me think they aren’t terribly concerned with not being filthy disgusting people and I’d rather not come into contact with them.

57

I had to read this three times before I realized you weren’t saying you didn’t brush your teeth for three months. I kept thinking, “Well, if I didn’t brush my teeth for three months in a row, I’d probably use bleach!” Finally, my reading comprehension kicked in, so :smiley:

I’m about a 2 on the scale, I suppose. I wash my hands before and after food prep, and after diaper changes and potty routines, but I don’t bother wiping down shopping carts and I don’t worry too much about my kids licking the floor, or each other, or whatever weird and gross thing they’re doing today.

58

I caught my son drinking the dogs water once and he survived.

59

I’m a 4 or a 5. I sit on public toilet seats, leave my toothbrush out, and so on. Actually I’m ill at the moment and had never before thought about discarding my toothbrush after illness. I’ll probably just run it through the dishwasher instead. I’ve got a 2 year old and a 4 year old so I’m sick several times a year no matter what I do…

I am careful about raw chicken and use seperate cutting boards for meat and fruit/veg. I use vinegar to clean as much as I can, instead of chemicals. I wash my hands before cooking, but don’t bother when I’m out to eat somewhere. The one thing I’m inflexible about is keeping one sponge just for cleaning and one just for dishes.

The most germophobic thing I’ve ever heard was a couple of women I know discussing laundry, and one saying “I just figured out that when I do laundry I take the clean clothing out of the dryer and put it right back in the same basket they were in when they were dirty!” And the other said, “Oh gross! I’m going to wipe down my laundry basket at every load from now on!” I just had to walk away.

60

For me I’d say that I’m 3 or 4 about most things, with a 9-or-10 quirk here and there (specifically when it comes to bodily fluids).

I’m a vegetarian so I never had to think about the whole meat-on-a-cutting-board thing, but I will have to chat with the boyfriend when we move in together this summer, as he is not a vegetarian and it would gross me out if he cut meat on my cutting boards.