OT: Things You Just Shouldn't Touch

[Ash]

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?

[dean]

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.

[Dr. Whom]

dean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> "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)

[onionhead]

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.

[Scott]

The less you touch that stuff the more your prone to get sick from germs. Being exposed to germs is good and builds your immunity. Not that you should eat from sources that are certain to make you sick, but I generally wash before meals, after yard work, or taking out the trash.

[Flangepart]

I don't feel too paranoid, if the cleaning crew is good. But when you see snot ...accumulated...whiped on the door of the bathroom stall....(Garff!)...you BETTER yell at the manager of the Bob Evens!

[daveblackeye15]

I worry about touching money before I eat. So I always wash my hands. That stuff is filthy when you think about it.

[akiratubo]

Your boss's boobs.

Yes, it was an accident.  I won't go into details but, fortunately, she thought it was pretty funny.

[Amanda]

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.

[LilCerberus]

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.

[Dr. Whom]

Amanda Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> .
 You have NO IDEA what
> kind of stuff lives on the bottom of a purse.

Now why hasn't anyone made a move about that? Unsuspecting women being eaten by something that lives down their purse.

[Fearless Freep]

Of course, she always flushed public restroom toilets with her foot if she HAD to use one.

I prefer a spinning back kick for unrinals...

[Neville]

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.

[peter johnson]

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

[dean]

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?