Surgeon Hands.....

I just watched Ellen Degeneres  and I laughed my butt off, as usual. Today she was talking about bathroom sanitation habits and how hard it is to keep your hands clean in the public bathroom. I found this hilarious as I am a germ-a-phobe. My answer to public bathrooms is surgeon hands. Actually surgeon hands is pretty much my answer to anything. Dirty surface? Surgeon hands. Germ infested doctor's office? Surgeon hands. World peace?.....Surgeon hands. Well, surgeon hands can't really give you a chance at world peace but it certainly can't hurt it either.

Few things darken my heart with fear like the door handle of a public bathroom door. I actually can hear the wee wee wee sound of the shower stab scene of the Pyscho movie in my head. I hate the door knob. I hate it....more than anything else...well, no I feel this way about every inanimate in a public restroom. I hate them. The both equally creep and gross me out at the same time


I hate public restrooms. I have no idea why they are called "restrooms" anyway. Who the hell wants to rest in a room where strangers go poop and pee?  Most never even wash their hands before they leave the room. The term rest implies restful, which in turn, implies a sense of relaxation. Who relaxes in a dimly lit room with wobbly metal stalls, broken toilet paper dispensers, unspeakable written messages so lovingly scrawled with keys or sharpie markers implying who loves whom or what number to "call for a good time", grime covered floors so dirty that you might actually find a few grams of dirt still ingrained in the tile that could possibly shed light on where Hoffa's body is buried? I mean, does anyone find these places relaxing? I find them to be a horror film I want no part of but my bladder refuses to cooperate. My bladder is trying to kill me.


To combat my germ fears (although I think we can both agree it is no longer just a "fear of germs" in the bathroom it's a reality) I become svelte and limber. I become a germ fighting ballerina  in the public bathroom, able to leap over dirty obstacles on the floor, raising my leg to astounding heights to be able to flush or turn things on and off with my shoe, and twirling my way out of the door after I have done my surgeon hands procedure washing up to your elbows and drying without touching anything and holding your hands up in the air in the surgical clean hands stance)

I will say this though, at least we have public toilets and not the random person with a long cloak and bucket you would pay to cover you with his jacket as you did your "business" like in the Victorian times. Or even before that where people just went under stairways or wherever they could find a quiet spot. Or later with the thunder jug, water closet or water shed, certainly not the horrid smelly outhouse. I truly believe had I been forced to live in those times my OCD would have taken over and  I may have simply fainted dead away from a heart attack. Or cholera. Probably both. Thankfully we have ,as humans, made great strides in the bathroom safety and quality of cleanliness department. I mean, public restrooms may never be clean enough that I don't feel like I may contract Ebola by simply touching the sink counter, but hey, that's just me and my germ-a-phobe ways. I personally would have to see it cleaned with boiling water and napalm before I felt it was "clean." It happens. People have to "go" so you have to in turn make places for them to "go" in. It's not rocket science.

So in short public restrooms are horrendous but necessary. For God's sake people wash your hands, and if at all possible remember surgeon hands can save your life. Or at least it might help you not get Ebola in the bathroom of your local grocery store.

Neurotic Nelly