I can’t blame people who are germophobic and it seems like as I grow older, I am becoming one too.

Driving home from the in-laws on Sunday, I stopped by several rest stops and was appalled to see the number of people who came out of the bathroom stalls and walked straight out the door without washing their hands. I must have counted about 6 people at 3 stops — 2 kids and 4 adults. Never would I have imagined that there would be more adults doing it than kids. And 2 of the adults were actually quite decently dressed with a tie and jacket. It kind of makes me wonder the next time I shake the hand of a nicely dressed manager or business person. Yuck! Going back to the rest stop story, what made it worse is that while they rushed out of the bathroom exit, I actually had finished washing my hands and had dried them so I was just about the next person to open the bathroom door to exit too (and I was NOT about to touch the door handle). I did wait for the next person to enter the bathroom so I could conveniently rush out the door without touching anything.

I have (in the past couple of years) been in the habit of using paper towels to touch everything in public bathrooms. It grosses me out to think about the number of germs on the bathroom stall door handles/locks, sink handles, flush handles to name some. Then to think about how clean the other public places like grocery stores are (i.e. specifically the shopping carts and baskets). At least some grocery stores have antibacterial wipes now to wipe down the carts and baskets. Some public restrooms also have the automatic sensors for flushing and washing hands — pretty sensible in my mind.

I did catch a report on CNN last week saying that airport security check-in areas (i.e. where people are required to take their shoes off and walk through the metal detectors) are just about the most unhygienic of places in airports as tests have uncovered everything from fecal matter to fungus on the floor area. It also reported on hotels/ motels too and random tests have shown that the cheaper motels like Motel6 and Red Roof Inn have uncovered more unsanitary bathrooms and unclean bedsheets/ duvets covers than the higher priced ones like the Marriott and Hilton hotels. And those free peanuts at the bars or pubs… don’t ever pick one up and eat them — they reported so many different types of germs in it and where they came from, it makes my stomach churn just thinking about it.

I read years ago that our bodies have learnt to adapt with a certain number of germs in the surroundings hence the reason why we never get sick from it i.e. we have a certain amount of immunity with our environment. However, I wish I didn’t read so much about it in the papers or watch reports of it on TV as it just makes me think of how gross, unhygienic and nasty some public places are.

… One of those things I wish I never knew! I feel sorry for Monk and I don’t blame Kelly Ripa for not liking it when Clay Aiken put his hand over her mouth — you just never know where it has been.

Note: Didn’t know the right spelling for germophobia — google listed two spelling versions of it (i.e. germophobia and germaphobia), I settled on the germophobia spelling.