I just got back to my desk after having a discussion with a co-worker and found this article about the very topic we were speaking on.
I explained that I felt it necessary to wash hands despite touching the area noted. I feel that with all the things we touch throughout the day it necessitates a thorough wash. For instance, after the deed, we touch the lever to flush (where applicable). We touch the door on the way out and possibly more to navigate a secure building. We touch keyboards, refrigerator doors, et al.; think of how many things other less than tidy folks have touched that in turn, you have now also touched. YUCK!
My coworker stated that he uses a full chorus of “Row your boat” to time the wash. I thought that made sense and will add this length to my already neurotic routine of using the kick panel on the door to open with my shoe.
The self-timing recommended lately is “enough time to sing Happy Birthday twice.” If you hear somebody faintly singing over the washbasin, don’t expect to see somebody blowing out candles on a cake.
Hand sanitizer won’t do the trick. It doesn’t remove the oils that the bacteria cling to. And it promotes the eventual triumph of hand sanitizer resistant bacteria.
As to urine therapy… I remember a Time magazine article about the Indian prime minister Moraji Desai (mentioned in Cecil’s column), who was well-known for drinking his own urine daily. Desai hospitably asked the Time correspondent who’d arrived for an interview if he’d like something to drink… the correspondent hastily declined.
Regarding Cecil’s comment that one risks getting deadly coliform bacteria from touching one’s middle areas, I would scarcely dare cast asparagus on a comment from The Man himself, but am I to understand that potentially my lower intestine houses bacteria that, if they simply migrated north as far as my stomach, might kill me? Or harm me? I know that the inanimate substances there, which are not themselves mobile, might be harmful if recycled, but that the bacteria are dangerous seems a bit severe…
Fecal coliform bacteria is quite dangerous. See, for example, Wikipedia: Escherichia coli, a common coliform bacteria in human feces.
The main risk, of course, is not to your own self, but to others to whom you spread your bacteria. That’s why the reference to “Typhoid Mary.” So, the people who know you, and the people who don’t know you but who touch or eat the objects you’ve been handling, would REALLY prefer it if you wash your hands after you go pee. Please. :eek:
Hello everyone! First time poster, here. I was introduced to the SD not too long ago, but now spend way too much time absorbing all that is written in these columns.
This one really got me wondering… I searched as best I could, but could find no column on the cleanliness of bathrooms. There was no mention of bathroom cleanliness in this column, even though it seems like a logical extension.
The importance of washing hands is made clear here, due to bacteria and all that… but what about other people’s bacteria? You guys know the bathrooms I’m talking about, in bars or malls–the ones where a constant stream of people leave water dripping from every faucet handle, dryer button, and paper-towel lever. There are pools of water on the counters around the sinks, pools of water on the floor, and god knows what INSIDE the sinks (especially in the case of the dive bar bathroom).
It seems that by the time you are done washing, you’ve still got a chance of harboring your own bacteria, but now you’ve also picked up the bacteria of other individuals. This would only be increased due to the shoddy hand-washing of others. So by the time you get out of the bathroom, you’re now ready to spread bacteria from half a dozen poor souls, rather than whatever jumped onto your hands during the act of urination.
What gives? Is it better just to scurry out of these filthy bathrooms, head-down, with your shirt-sleeve over your hand when you touch the doorknob?
This reminds me of the time I was at a picnic and after I peed I went to wash my hands and saw three or four bars of green soap that were literally encrusted with sand, hair and dirt. I opted to just walk out, but as I walked out the door, I wiped my hands on my pants.
I think Cecil really dropped the ball in this column, with his uninhibited paranoia and substution of what could happen for what is likely to. Wasn’t this even the man who wrote about the cloud of shit that gets released every time you flush your toilet that covers your toothbrushes and insides of your lungs? That doesn’t go around killing us, now does it?
In fact, people need to understand that ‘harmful’ things like bacteria or toxins HAVE to be ingested in small amounts or the body’s defences grow weak and become dangerously vulnerable. Eg, it’s not uncommon for the intestine to get scratched up or bleed. Your white cells need some exposure and immunity to intestinal bacteria, or the next time you get constipation you could die. Of course the body pretty much takes care of this already, it even grows hemorrhoids on your sphincter whose only purpose seems to be to mix blood and shit in a controlled environment.
All this, of course, is on top of the fact that your dick is cleaner and has a lot less bacteria overall than either your hands or your face. Let’s face it: people wash hands after urinating because urinating is a ‘nasty’ bodily function. There’s no reason to force on a retroactive explanation.
Again, this is incorrect on its face. Cecil has said more than once that the nether regions harbor unsafe bacteria. They are mainly unsafe not to you, who presumably have come to an accomodation with them, but to those to whom you might transmit the bacteria (such as the stranger whose hand you shake).
If I knew that a person didn’t wash his/her hands after urination, you can bet I’d be quite a bit more circumspect about touching their hands. :eek:
DSYoungEsq doesn’t understand the point. If it’s already in your lower intestine, what’s going to happen if (by getting it into your mouth) it gets into your upper intestine? What keeps it from just swimming upstream into your stomach?
What does DSYoungEsq do after handling money? Or opening the bathroom door to leave? It seems pretty clear that the most effective defense against microbes is strong health, rather than trying to avoid them… because you’re not going to succeed on that one, anyhow.
rcburket doesn’t understand the point. I’m not much at risk from MY bacteria, but I sure shouldn’t be spreading them around to other people. Which is why we insist upon food handlers washing their hands after going pee, as well as after going poo.
A point I’ve made now THREE times in this same thread. I wonder about the reading skills of people… :smack:
“It’s time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year / We’ll eat a lot of broccoli and drink a lot of beer” … And six minutes later, my hands are bleeding.
[Yes, DSYoungEsq has expressed his point three times. But he still hasn’t responded to the question of how he fares in a world that doesn’t know, or always obey, his rules. What DOES he do after handling money? Boil his hands? How DOES he get out of the Men’s Room without touching the door handle? Wait for an arrival?
