Print Page - OT: Things You Just Shouldn't Touch

I'm not a germophobe by any means.
Far from it.
I'll touch a plethora of contaminated objects without even thinking twice about it.

When I think of a germophobic person, I think of that movie, "What About Bob?" starring Bill Murray.
Remember how he had to use a Kleenex to open doors?
Or the fictional character Monk played by Tony Shalhoub.
That guy washes his doorknobs in the dishwasher!
Compared to those examples...I'm definitely not a germophobe.

But I must admit to you guys that there are two things in this world that you should never ever touch with your hands or fingers.
Two things that I absolutely refuse to touch with my own fingers...

1.) Elevator buttons
and...
2.) The punch clock at work

Elevator buttons are the worst!
Who knows how many people picked their noses, had their hands down their pants or wiped their asses in the bathroom without washing before they pressed the button for their floor!
Ewww!
I guess it's because I live in a high-rise building where we depend on three elevators to take us from floor to floor.

Second is the time clock at my work where daily, darn near 200-300 people manually punch in their 8 digit employee number with their bare fingers.
(your Social Security number minus the first digit)
They punch in for work....and out when their done.
Think about that...200-300 people punching twice a day.
That's a lot of nasty, dirty fingers!

YUCK!

I always make sure to punch both the elevator buttons in my apt. building and the time clock at work with my car ignition key.
I've had friends at my job notice and ask me about it.
I always make sure to tell them exactly why...

If I don't have my keys with me, I use the knuckle of my right middle finger to press them.
I then make sure to wash my hands as soon as I can get to a sink.

I'll bet that if you swabbed any of those buttons, who knows what kind of germs or diseases you'd find!
I shudder at the thought of it.

How about you?
Are there certain things in this world that you just won't touch?

You're crazy Ash. Total germaphobe! :-P Pushing elevator buttons with a key!

Hehe, I'm just messing around!

Actually I do remember a drunken conversation I had with a guy at a bar sometime earlier in the year.. He didn't wash his hands after going to the urinal, and on interrogation on why he doesn't do it he looks me in the eye and tells me something along the lines of:

"What's the first thing you touch after you zip up? The tap. That means you're effectively touching someone else's penis, and then whenever you turn the tap off, you're just undoing all the good work you did by washing your hands in the first place anyway. And I'd prefer to have just my penis on my hands rather than someone elses"

Hilarious comment actually.

But anyways, I don't have a problem with taps or elevator buttons, so I guess I'm just a hotbed of germs. But that's probably better that way. It builds immunity. Otherwise we'd be like bubble-people who collapse and die the first time someone sneezes on us.

dean Wrote:
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>
>
> "What's the first thing you touch after you zip
> up? The tap. That means you're effectively
> touching someone else's penis, and then whenever
> you turn the tap off, you're just undoing all the
> good work you did by washing your hands in the
> first place anyway. And I'd prefer to have just
> my penis on my hands rather than someone elses"
>
>
The man is absolutely correct. I write for a plumbing & heating magazine, so I know about these things, and I can tell you that in public lavatories all kinds of knobs and handles (doors, locks, taps, flush...) are full of germs. Most people obsess about toilet seats (and sure, there are germs there too), but they should be at least as worried about flush levers (think about it, what do you after you wipe)

Which is why it is reccomended that you turn the water off with a paper towel AFTER you've dried off your hands.
Actually, I thought, before I opened Ash's post, that it would pertain to, oh, say that meteorite that just fell outta the sky, and you are conventintly holding a stick just made for poking. Or that odd egg-like thing you found in the bowels of some derelict spacecraft. Or that persistent pustule on your cheek that suddenly spouts insects.
Heh-heh, guess I was mistaken.

My mom's motto was "Flush and Rush and avoid the gush." Of course, she always flushed public restroom toilets with her foot if she HAD to use one.

I always turn off the tap in a public restroom with a paper towel. And I hold onto another one to open the door with. I work in a lobby with a restroom across from the desk, and it's AMAZING how many times you see that door open before the toilet has even stopped it's flushing. No way they're washing their hands or even grabbing some sanitizing gel.

I'm taking microbiology, and we've had to swab a LOT of different things and grow cultures from them. I've stopped using drinking fountains, and stopped carrying a purse. You have NO IDEA what kind of stuff lives on the bottom of a purse.

I used to do the foot thing, but it occurred to me just how inconsiderate that was to the next guy.
Nowadays, I use a separate wad of paper to push the handle.

What bugs me, is when I knock on the door & don't hear anything, then jiggle the door handle & find it's not locked, then casually stroll inside, only to find some doophus who doesn't have the brains to lock the door or reply when someone knocks.

And the restrooms at Wendy's! Folks, don't go by the little pictures on the door, please, read what it says just below the picture.

I don't think I ever took the time to think about this... I don't care much for elevator buttons, nor money (and I even heard a large percentage of bills has small cocaine residues), but I sometimes push the button of traffic lights with my knuckles, and I always lift the toilet seat with my feet when using public restrooms (I don't like urinaries).

I guess that if I want to improve in my neurosis I should be more consistant with this habits. I mean, competition is strong, and it takes many years to achieve a Howard Hughes level.

I can't believe this is a topic of conversation here!!
Some observations:
Fact One: URINE IS STERILE!! This is a medical fact you can look up easily on numerous websites. Human urine contains NO bacteria. Touching your penis is no more "germ" intensive than touching your elbow or face. There is nothing in your own p**s that can contaminate you. An encounter with someone else's p**s on a toilet seat has an infintessimal possibility of causing you any sort of harm at all. If you are already ill with Dengue Fever or Yaws or AIDS, then p**sing on yourself won't change anything, and if you're not subject to any of these diseases, then handling your apparatus whilst producing urine won't create or destroy any "germs". Ask a doctor.
Fact Two: General hand-washing, independent of any sort of waste-relieving behaviour, does eliminate some bacteria for a brief interval. However, maintaining a generally clean personal environment is more condusive to general health than all the hand-washing in the world. Put another way: Handling all the metal door handles of all the public restrooms in all the filthy gas stations in the world puts you at less risk than one single encounter with your wooden kitchen cutting board.
Fact Three: Life in general, and the environment around us, contains at all times a high concentration of various microorganisms that can do us harm. All the washing in the world won't help as much as a good diet, good vitamin intake, and general exercise to keep your natural immune system up.
Stop kicking those doors closed!! Someone has to pay for that . . .
peter filth/denny sputum

Yup, all you germaphobes are doing yourselves more damage by keeping a sterile environment around ya. Go roll around in the mud and get healthy!!

That being said of course there's just common sense...

But anyways, something which actually relates to this topic [funnily enough] is something that's been a bit of an issue here down south lately.

Since we're sort of in a drought at the moment, and there's pretty much a national water shortage, there's been talk of using recycled water. That is going Waterworld-style, drinking our own recycled and cleansed effluent.

There was a town which recently had a big vote on whether they should adopt this, since they are particularly water-starved and a bitter campaign erupted over it all. As it turns out, they voted "No" to adopting recycled water, but from what I remember it was a close margin.

My question is, would you mind or is that a big "NO!" vote? Especially since water is becoming more and more scarce, I really do see that we'll get to a point where we may tell our great-grandkids 'remember the times when we didn't used to have recycled water?'

See, I don't mind the idea. We really should be trying to conserve enough water as possible [yes, I'm a hoarder by nature] but on top of this, it's just common sense. We may not be to the point where the entire country is a brown dust-bowl, but it's certainly heading that way gradually. Every little bit helps I say.

So would you drink recycled water, or would you be completely put off by the idea?

Drinking recycled water? Too many echoes of "Waterworld" there, as you said, Dean. But anyway, if we have to, I'll get used to it quickly, as everybody else. And I don't want to souns alarmist, but it DOES sound like the future, unless seawater treatment becomes so standard that its cost disminishes radically. In my country we've had tow years of draught by now, and there's talks in the media about future water restrictions.

We already DO drink recycled water. What do you think, the earth makes NEW water continuously?

Some yes, but the bulk of the water on the planet has been water for a LONG time...some with fish living (and all that entails) and dying in it, some with cow waste running into it, and some, yes, that has been drunk by a human, excreted, flushed, lived in by fish, evaporated, rained and re-drunk by humans, etc, for millenia.

Oh, and a BIG Thank-You to Peter Johnson for injecting some intelligence and common sense into this discussion. To add to his point of urine being sterile, there have been many documented cases of sailors adrift at sea who had drunk their own urine to survive. Maybe it sounds gross to our hypersensitive civilized sensibilities, but there you go.

I remember hearing a story about a former PM of Israel (not sure if it was Ben-Gurion) who was reported to drink a glass of his own urine first thing every morning.... Australian Prime Minister at the time (back in the 70's) Gough Whitlam apparently said when told, "I've heard of getting on the p**s early but thats ridiculous!".

My personal hatred is public toilet doors that open inwards. ALL public toilet doors should open OUTWARDS. That way irrespective of the hygiene levels inside/outside/your own/the other persons, you have the option of getting out without having to pull on the door handles. At work I reach up and open the doors using the arm on top of the door (designed for what, closing it gently?) and then hook it with my foot to get it the rest of the way. Several other people have commented that this is a good idea, but if I ever see someone else doing it, I'm screwed - I won't be able to trust that the arm isn't being used by someone else who may not have washed their hands - and therefore will never be able to use those toilets again! (unless I stand there and wait for someone else to come in, maybe?)

btw Dean - I would be surprised if Adelaide would have a problem with recycled water - no-one drinks the tapwater here anyway, so that issue just wouldn't be enough to block it!

......jellyfish. Never ends well. Just kidding.

But freaking out over the time clock, Ash? Sounds like a little much to me. Then again we went to a swipe clock using our combo time card/ID badge/key card several years agowhere I work. You never touch anything but your own card, the slot it passes through might pick up a few germs but surely nothing that could live for long unless someone was cooking up something sinister, where you'd have bigger problems anyway. Although whenever I think I'm getting sick, I joke about going around the building and coughing on every door knob, phone receiver, toliet handle, time clock, coffee pot, cup, water fountain, snack machine button, first aid kit, etc. I can find to "spread the misery".

I was raised by my parents to flush public toliets with my feet, still do usually but I'm aware that there are worse dangers of infections. I agree thanking Peter Johnson for some injection of reason into the topic. To go along with the common sense theme (I hope), avoiding close contact with people who practice bad hygiene seems obvious. Several years ago, we had a guy at work who could not stop picking his nose OR scratching his privates and backside. The general opinion was that he probably had crabs. I eventually gave him the nickname "Scabby Hayes", which stuck to him for the rest of the time he worked there. There was also the guy who was another "scratcher" who could not stop playing with his tongue piercing. Yet when he one day swallowed the thing he spazzed out wondering what it would do to him.

But years ago, I handled lots of change after my mom's boyfriend had us help him count the donations he had helped collect when he worked for the sheriff's department. Hundreds of dollars in coins and small bills. Our hands were a dark sickly green color afterwards. We all washed several times before we did anything else. Made you think just how often money got touched, by how many people, and where all it went.

One thing I never, ever want to touch again: a fridge packed with food gone bad.

About a year ago, my grannie went to live with us, following our grandpa's death, and for a while I took care of her old house. I inmediately threw away anything that could go bad in a short term, but kept the rest of the stuff in the frisge, and didn't switch off the electricity.

And a few months ago, my father decided he would take care of the house. Anyway, he comes back and I asked him: "You didn't switch off the current, did ya?". And of course he had. For some reason, it took us several weeks to come back to the house, and guess who had to clean the damn fridge. The smell was so putrid I vomited, and then I still had to pick up, with my bare hands, all the soft stuff that had been forzen vegetables and meat, pack it into dripping plastic bags and throw it away, which meant several trips. Most of the stuff was already boiling with multi-colored fly larvae.

I haven't gone back to the damn house in a couple of months, and I've told my family I'm not doing this kind of stuff again. It wasn't even the first time, as I once had to do it in our other apartment, but that time there were only some eggs and fruit gone bad. This time was much worse.

Neville Wrote:
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One thing I never, ever want to touch again: a
> fridge packed with food gone bad.

Food gone bad...
Sounds like a really bad reality television show like "When Animals Attack!"

Open the fridge...all you hear are screams and puking sounds!
I can just hear the TV announcer talking about tonight's upcoming episode...
"They thought the fridge was safe...they had no idea how bad it really was! Tune in tonight for the season premier of Food Gone Bad!

Yaddo 42 Wrote:
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But freaking out over the time clock, Ash? Sounds
> like a little much to me.

Dude, you obviously haven't seen the time clock at my job.
It's been touched by so many fingers that all of the buttons on it have this glazed over look.
(they look like they're wet)
From all of the sweat and God knows what other bodily fluids have touched them.
It's sick. Really sick.

Yes, urine is usually sterile. But you have to take into account the people that are fighting bladder and urinary tract infections, etc. Feces, on the other hand.....ugh.

And last, but not least, just think about women for a second. We have periods, ya'll! The women where I work are trolls, and there are hundreds of them, just in the front of the building, all using one restroom with 4 stalls. On a DAILY BASIS, I enter that freaking restroom to find traces of BLOOD on the toilet seats, the floor, and the walls. Just tiny smatterings, but just the same.

I don't freak out about this kind of thing. I find another stall that appears clean, and wash my hands thoroughly afterward. I know that it's far worse to never touch germs than to collect a few along the way. "Sterile" environments spawn multi-resistant bacteria. But, I think blood is perfectly acceptable and logical thing to have the heebie-jeebies about.

What is it about public restrooms that makes people act SO differently than they would at home? People also smear boogers on the stall walls. Gross, people.

I cannot remember where I read this, but I know I saw somewhere that the common office desk has like 10 times more germs and bacteria then a public restroom.
I will see if I can search around and find that source.

Here we are and I was wrong, it is hundreds of times more germs then a public restroom.
Link Below

Nasty Office! (http://search.netscape.com/ns/boomframe.jsp?query=desk+germs&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3Dd8d41883493db7ff%26clickedItemRank%3D1%26userQuery%3Ddesk%2Bgerms%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.cnn.com%252F2004%252FHEALTH%252F12%252F13%252Fcold.flu.desk%252F%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNSCPIndex%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2004%2FHEALTH%2F12%2F13%2Fcold.flu.desk%2F)

The water cycle, ah, worship it now. Really, I have drank plenty of recycled water and when properly handled it is much better than water from a well. Especially a shallow well - which in places like India often means water tainted with arsenic.

Katie and I were just going over our emergency pack today. I intend to get a new water filter system, to backup our purification tablets. The one I had been looking at was a pure ceramic filter. The only problem is that, while it can be used to strain up to 15,000 gallons - removing even viri, it does not help at all with lead, arsenic, or anything else like that. So, I am getting their second best model, which has a carbon filter as well. Only good for 800 gallons (or something like that) before you need a new filter, but the fact that the carbon will remove some dangerous chemicals from the water is worth it to me.

Two of the greatest things ever created for quick sanitation. Bleach wipes and Purell hand cleaner. Bleach is the chemical of choice for pretty much killing anything that is tiny and out to reproduce in or on you, while Purell is awesome in that you do not need water. I have also used alcohol wipes.

No offense intended toward anyone, Ash. I guess I'm just inured to getting too grossed out by regular heavy use of everyday objects after having to confront the showers and the toliet in my high school gym the year I took PE. No one ever went near the showers and the toliet was clogged for half the year so badly and got so rank that part of the daily "hijinks" was to try to shove unsuspecting people into the bowl, no stall just a brief cinderblock wall. I had a locker closer to the funk trap than anyone in the class so I had to stay on guard for myself as well as watch for potential victims trying find someone to push in front of them as a last line of defense.

But you're right I haven't seen your time clock. Is the "wet" look to the buttons dirt, grime, food particles, dead skin, etc built up like "keyboard grime" or shower mildew; or is it possible the time clock is so old and well used that the coating or finish on the buttons has worn smooth making it look "slick". We had electronic keypad doorlocks that that happened to due to constant use.

Neville: the compressor or the freon for my fridge in my old apartment went bad hours after I had bought a week worth of groceries. Half a day later I open the freezer to a blast of warm air and see everything all gooey and leaking (including a huge bag of garlic and herb seasoned chicken breasts that you could get a faint whiff of when the bag was sealed and properly frozen). Tossed everything between rounds of swearing. Cleaned and aired out that thing numerous times, never did get the last of the odor out of the freezer, the old landlord finally got me a new-ish fridge two weeks later, just my luck the thing died the week the building was being sold.

On a lighter note, "a fridge packed with food gone bad": not fun in real life, but the major plot point of a classic episode of "Cowboy Bebop."

When I was growing up we had a huge standing freezer (so big that an uncle who wanted to buy it said, "you could stack bodies in that thing") that we had to do that with twice a year. Guess who had to climb it the thing with the bucket, the dull knife, and towels.

My mom may still have it, she bought it, for $27 IIRC, almost 40 years ago from a trade school where the students had repaired it - so its true age is unknown to us- and painted it the ugliest shade of brown, even by the standards of ugly appliance colors from the 60 & 70s.

Dear ASH --
Come again?
What on Earth do you mean that by saying something nice to me/about me, ulthar has somehow insulted the entire thread? Did he insult me as well, since I'm part of "everyone" here too?
Not sure I follow that, old man . . .
My point stays: Of course there are infectous threats in the world today, but this thread -- at the beginning at least -- was getting a tad extreme. I certainly meant no insult to anyone, but I still think that modern America/Western culture can tend to get a tad overly concerned with "dangers' not really manifest.
This would be an observation, not an attack.
Scott: Love the illustration. I find severed heads don't keep well in my Amana either . . .
Amanda: Menstrual cycles produce no more than a tablespoon of actual blood over a seven day period. While the color may be similar, blood it ain't.
* * *
I have suffered for real from infectous hepatitis and other germy things over the years, primarily as a result of travel and living in Asia, but my original observation that we're surrounded with it 24/7 stands. Why aren't we all pitching over dead then? Because our general health, as products of Western Civilization, is pretty good. We eat well, we have basic sanitation, we clean ourselves daily -- well, most of us -- and this is enough.
It is not necessary, as some (Not on this board! Don't take offense!!) have argued, to take a blowtorch to the undersides of our sinks and toilets to insure cleanliness and good health.
If I pitch over dead tomorrow from an improperly sanitized public telephone, then I will apologise to all of you. Until then, I'll radically declare that those of you using blowtorches and bleach and gloves and kleenexes to open doors and touch things will statistically live exactly as long as those of us who don't bother.
So why bother?
peter filth/denny infection

Ah, Newt Newt newt newt newt!!
Indeed, I have made fun of my name for profit on numerous occasions --
Back around '83 to '89 or so, I toured pretty exetensively out West (Colorado/California, etc.) as a standup comic --
The patented opening bit to my standup spots was, after I was introduced by the MC: "Here he is, Peter Johnson!!", this:
"That's right, folks, you heard right -- My name IS . . . Peter Johnson. And that's very unfortunate, because I grew up in a part of the South where BOTH the word "Peter" AND the word "Johnson" were synonymous for the same organ" (Hold for laugh)
"Yeah, I grew up with things like: (Imitates Redneck geek) "Peter Johnson! Peter Johnson? Your name is Peter Johnson??!! Well, s**t, boy! Why didn't yo' mama jest name yew "Dick Dick"??!! (Imitates smacking motions) -- (Ducking from the imaginary blows:) "Aw, c'mon, Dad, cut it out! . . . (HUGE laugh from crowd . . .).
* * *
Yeah, the very name "Peter" in America is fraught with nursery rhyme connotations that upset you, and then as soon as you learn dirty words . . . well . . .
peter johnson/dual genetalia

The name puts you in good company though, in a postscript to one of his letters, Groucho Marx is supposed to have quipped something like, "Have you ever noticed that Peter O'Toole's name is a double penis reference?"

Your middle name isn't Richard by any chance, just to complete the hat trick? But I guess you would have mentioned it. Another perfectly good name turned into snickering material.

I did go to high school with a guy whose full name was Charles Perry Burns Cox. So his name was a source of humor that also formed a sentence. Probably the best grammar lesson some of the rednecks there ever had.

fyi i work in an office where you have to turn a handle to get out of the bathroom. I know firsthand that not all the women flush. After 1 or 2, usually it's the same women. We know who they are. Clearly the doorhandle has more germs since doorhandles never are cleaned. I usually use a paper towel to open the door when leaving. Then problem is there is a second door. So that's why I keep a giant tub of purell on my desk. People used to joke i was a germaphobe. I never get a cold or anything contagious.

I also stopped eating at office spreads after I walked into the breakroom at work and saw an elderly woman who never flushes after #2 helping prepare the tunafish sandwhiches with her bare hands. She then proceeded when finished to lick her fingers from knuckle to tip.

btw purell comes in minature pocket sized tubes.

peter johnson Wrote:
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> Yeah, the very name "Peter" in America is fraught
> with nursery rhyme connotations that upset you,
> and then as soon as you learn dirty words . . .
> well . . .
> peter johnson/dual genetalia

I tried breaking into comedy back in the early '90s.
My opening bit was about why I changed my name from Al Strickland to Rick KMD, although I don't quite recallect how the execution went.

I know I had some material work with, such as how there was always some celeb du juor named Al, or how I'm A.P. the fourth, & both my dad & grandpa answered to something else, or how my full first name is Algin, which not only lead to a broad spectrum of mispronunciations & jokes about these mispronunciations, but if you look it up, it's also the name of some type of fungus.

Unfortunately, I was always beat out by the bodybuilding mexican Elvis impersonator with the Micheal Jackson routine.... Well, that & folks were a little turned off by some of of the observations I made about some of the headbangers & dopers I knew, & that story about what really went through my head the first time I wrecked by motorbike... Well, I guess if you never owned one, you wouldn't understand.

Speaking of things you shouldn't touch, has anyone ever thought about how we're taught to cover our mouths with our hand whenever we cough or sneez, & then we go to the doctor to do something about it, & the waiting room is full of other people who've been coghing & sneezing into there hands, & the doctor's left out a bunch of magazines, which've been picked up & touched & fondled by a bunch of people that've been sneezing & coughing into their hands?

Recycling tortillas chips is quite common in restaurants, not doing it is probably the exception or only done in higher end places, cutting corners and maintaining profit margins and all.

Just like today's leftover cooked ground beef and hamburger patties becoming the meat in tomorrow's chili. Learned that one from a friend who worked in Wendy's as his first high school job.

After I read "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain, I loaned it to my sister who worked her way through college in places like Red Lobster. She said she could vouch for lots of the bad stuff he wrote about that would apply to food places in general, like avoiding the Sunday Brunch Seafood Special and saving the toughest and worst cuts of steak for people who like theirs "well done". But she said some of it only applied to places that did more from scratch since so much at places like RL was prepackaged. Also she agreed that the bread guys were odd, but good ones could get away with a lot.

Yeah th wendy's chili is old news. But they don't use meat leftover from what people ate. That's the difference. When you recycle chips you are recycling chips people touched, ate half of and maybe licked the salt off of. Chip may have been on the table or fallen on the floor, picked up and put back in the basket.

The root of that problem lies in portion. Restaurants are famous for giving customers oversized portions of everything. When it comes to the chips and salsa, give a small bowl and then come back and ask if they are done or would like more. That way you dont' have leftovers and you earn your tip.

So much food wastage. Either people fee obligated to clean their plate and contribute to the obesity problem or they don't finish the plate and the restaurant has just hundreds of pounds of wasted leftovers daily to throw out. Portion sizes are getting ridiculous. But i digress

Susan Wrote:
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> When you recycle chips you are
> recycling chips people touched, ate half of and
> maybe licked the salt off of. Chip may have been
> on the table or fallen on the floor, picked up and
> put back in the basket.
>

Or, like I've seen my sister do, blow her nose into a napkin then put the used napkin into the chip bowl with the chips we were not going to eat.

Badmovies.org Forum

Movies => Bad Movies => Topic started by: Ash on October 05, 2006, 05:16:57 AM