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 .   .   .   .  .   .  .   .  .   .            "Jason on Sanitation"
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  . . .  .   .   . . .  . . .  . . .                 by Jason


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        It seems that every culture and every time has its bogeyman, it's
 great all-encompassing fear that dictates the actions of the hordes of
 lemmings until something better comes along.  The God-fearing folk of Salem
 had their witches, the people in the 50's had their Commies, and the French
 have the rest of the world.

        Today, the invincible enemy seeking to ruin civilization is, for many
 people, germs.  Ironic that, since this is the first time in history people
 don't regularly die from the swarm of malicious micromarauders whose only
 goal is to use us to spread themselves around, even if it kills us.  Sure,
 it's still pretty bad in the 3rd world, but in developed countries you have
 a pretty piss poor chance of dying of a disease, even AIDS (which wouldn't
 even have been a concern two hundred years ago with Plague, Typhoid,
 Cholera, and Small Pox bouncing around).

        As a result, a society of hypochondriacs is sterilizing and anti-
 bacterializing everything they can get their hands on.  I'm all for
 vaccination and treating sewer water, but some things people do in their
 fear of germs are just plain silly, if not counterproductive.  Take the
 long-held idea of washing one's hands after going to the bathroom.  I'm not
 talking about when you drop your nutty friends off at the pool.  When you
 have the green apple splatters, you probably should wash your hands, since
 you don't want to contaminate anything with fecal bacteria (even though you
 can find said bacteria just about EVERYWHERE in the real world).

        Now I don't know about the rest of you horn-dog crackheads, but my
 one-eyed submariner is probably the cleanest, best-kept part on my body.  It
 doesn't even have the chance to get germs, since it never comes in contact
 with anything or anyone that may have cooties.
 
        Sigh.  Now I'm getting depressed.

        "But what about the piss?" says the pimply geek in row four.

        Piss is sterile, numbnuts.  Urine is 100% germ free when it exits
 your body and therefore doesn't pose a threat to anyone.  I kind of wish it
 would, though, because those sick bastards who drink it all the time make me
 want to puke.  On top of that, through 26 years of study, I've developed the
 sublime skill of not getting piss on my hands when I wring out my bladder.
 I'll grant, though, that in uppity circles it might be considered impolite
 to fail to wash your hands afterwards, and it doesn't really hurt
 anything... usually.

        Which brings us to PUBLIC RESTROOMS (cue scary music).  Figure that
 when you flush the toilet or urinal, every single person before you has done
 the same thing.  Statistically, a fair number of those people were not
 terribly sanitary, and I can guarantee that at least on them had herpes or
 hepatitis or something like that.

        "Uh oh," you say, "I'd better wash my hands!"  And so you reach down
 and turn on the faucet that dozens of disease-ridden, feces-covered, hairy-
 palmed hands have done before (not counting your own stinky pair).  So you
 wash your hands, hopefully washing away your own filth and everyone else's.
 Then what do you do?

        You touch that same faucet again to turn off the water!  Everything
 you just got OFF your hands is right back on!  Don't even THINK about
 hitting the button on that blow-dryer!  So not only have you essentially
 done nothing but pick up the cooties of God-only-knows how many people, but
 they're on your finger tips.  The next time you rub your eyes or nose or
 mouth, you're rubbing those germs right into your body.  I admit, though, I
 do wash my hands after the public bathroom, mostly because of the years of
 programming at the hands of the Viet Cong.

        Armed with this knowledge, you can freely do your business in a
 public restroom and leave without washing your hands.  If someone challenges
 you and says, "Don't you know anything about hygene?" You can proudly say,
 "YES!"

        Then you have to open the bathroom door, though.  Try not to feel the
 billions of microbes from dozens of hands squirming under your grip as you
 pull it open.

        I love messing with hypochondriacs. 

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  .           anada 174                      by Jason  (c)2000 anada e'zine .
      
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