OK, I know a lot of you do this, and at this point I might even be the societal outlier by the numbers. So be it.
When I use a restroom, I wash my hands with warm water and soap (assuming both are available). Then, I dry them with whatever faculty is provided for such. Finally, I grasp the door handle with my bare hand and exit the restroom.
Gasp! Did he just say that? Yes, he did. I cannot recall ever using a paper towel to open a restroom door.
Though I choose not to, I could consider all of the places that pathogens potentially wait for me in the course of a day. I could think about other door handles, bank pens, ATM keypads, ketchup packets, waiting room chairs, shopping basket handles, restaurant menus, lettuce tongs, money, and Coke machine buttons.
But I don’t. I don’t carry hand sanitizer with me and use it everywhere. I also don’t get sick often enough to believe that my habits in dealing with public implements are a significant factor. You want to know when I quit getting sick several times a year? When I quit smoking.
I think there’s probably something to the school of thought that says your immune system gets stronger when it has a little something to do now and again.
Now I was a little more careful when the boys were very small. And, honestly, even today I’ll handle a renegade loose toilet paper roll gingerly, avoiding putting my hands into the central cardboard tube.
But the rest of it? No way. Not burning any concern oil on it.
Plus, how do you know the guy who loaded the paper towels wasn’t picking his nose when he did it?
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I DO usually use a paper towel to open the door..if I have the option.
I also use the wipes at the door on my buggy handle (because that’s no lie…probably the nastiest thing you’ll touch all day).
But I mostly still do it out of habit.
I started with all that (and the sanitizing gel in my purse) when we were transporting Jeff’s dad to and from the Cancer Treatment Center in Tulsa. Those were all recommendations to keep us well so we wouldn’t get him sick with his suppressed immunity.
Well, that’s a specific concern, for sure. You could easily carry some amount of pathogen that wasn’t enough to infect you but was enough to infect him, particularly closed up in a car with him.
You have school aged children. Your immune system is stimulated enough without touching e-coli doorknobs.
Huh? Sorry, couldn’t hear you. I was licking telephones.