Thinking Out Loud, Volume CCCLXII

Having to deal with my own filth is bad enough, but when I come in contact with the filth of others, I find it repulsive. One night last week I was staying in a nice hotel in the New Orleans area, and when I checked in, they told me that they had upgraded me to a suite. It had been a fairly stressful day, and when I noticed the jacuzzi in my room, I said, "Why not." I filled up the tub with hot water and settled in to relax for a while. Everything was great until I turned it on, and when I did, I felt a rush of cold water come coming out of the pipes. Then it hit me. That cold water had been sitting idle in the pipes, and it was water that had been circulating when the last guest used it. From that moment, there was no pleasure in that experience. My job requires that I travel quite a bit, so I end up spending a lot of nights in hotels, and although the beds always have clean sheets, I don't recall ever seeing the housekeepers taking the bedspreads and blankets to be cleaned. The first thing I do when I go into my hotel room is pull the bedspread off my bed, because who knows what all has transpired on it since the last time it was cleaned. Gag. I will tell you, however, that in order to maintain what little bit of sanity I have left, I've reached a point where I'm still cautious, but I refuse to become a "germ-a-phobic." Let's take a look at reality. How clean is the money we handle every day? How often do we shake someone's hand when we have no idea where that hand has been since it was last washed? How clean are the door knobs and handrails we handle every day? Has your shoe lace ever touched the floor in a public restroom? Have you ever swam in a public pool that's used by large numbers of people? What are the standards of cleanliness used in the kitchens of the restaurants we patronize on a regular basis? On more than one occasion I've actually witnessed individuals licking the excess off of the tops of ketchup bottles in restaurants. I've seen restaurant employees exit stalls in the restroom and head straight back to the kitchen without washing their hands. Maybe there was a sink they used in the kitchen, but, for my sake, they should've washed their hands before leaving the restroom. Those are things I've seen. I wonder what all has happened that I did not see. My point is, we often take precautions in some areas while not even noticing other areas that are equally unsanitary. There's no way to avoid coming in contact with all sorts of germs every day, no matter how hard we think we're trying. Like I said earlier, I'm cautious, but I'm enough of a realist to understand that the hand I'm shaking may have just emerged from a Port-a-John where there's no place to wash your hands. Thank God for hand sanitizer, which I use regularly, but I'm even more thankful that God designed our bodies to build resistance to filth. That removes some of the worry. If it didn't, I'd go crazy. Preston