COLUMN: Wash your hands so we don’t suffer

Don’t worry ladies, I’m not going to talk about boots or the terrible current fashion trends. Even though I still think wearing the same ratty pair of leggings every day of the week is trashy – especially with Uggs – one of the nice women who read my female fashion piece gave me a pair of men’s Uggs, and I have to admit, they are pretty comfy. In fact, the other night I said it was just like sticking my foot into a warm, fuzzy sheep.

I’ve promised to never again openly talk smack on Uggs. Now I’m just going to whine about the unsanitary things people do in lieu of maintaining an acceptable level of personal hygiene.

The other morning, while chatting with a journalism professor about the recent Spring Break, we discussed the extraordinarily warm weather, the fact that only six weeks remain in the semester, and we talked about pneumonia and chest infections. That’s when we started talking about all the times we’ve gotten sick this winter at USU.

I would like to thank all of the wonderful, clean and healthy people who randomly enter my sphere of existence on a given day and are so considerate of their surroundings that they manage to share their nasty germs with me and anyone who gets near them. This column is for you; and it’s especially for the guy sitting in a bathroom stall reading a copy of The Utah Statesman that was hanging on the wall next to the toilet. Just think about the individual who hung that newspaper there in the toilet stall and where that person’s hands were before they touched that second-hand newspaper.

Ladies, I’d like to blow up the spots of about 60 percent of your boyfriends – pretty much every day I go into a bathroom at USU, I hear at least one dude utilize the facilities and then leave the bathroom without washing his hands. I’ve got news for those of you who think a handy squirt of sanitizer is a good substitute for thoroughly washing your hands with soap and warm-to-hot water – false. Instead of cleaning your hands, you’re smearing an alcohol-based, snot-textured goop around on your dirty little mitts with all the microbes that were crawling around on the public restroom door handle you grabbed before exiting the bathroom.

For those of you who leave the restroom without washing your hands or using sanitizer – grow up, this isn’t middle school anymore, and you have the potential to make one or many people seriously ill.

Don’t worry readers, this isn’t going to be another bathroom column. Tavin Stucki already covered that. This addresses the impure things done by grown children bandying about campus under the guise of being young, successful future leaders of the world – and what you actually do when you think no one is looking. So, ladies, next time you’re hugging up on your big, sexy, disgusting, seldom-bathed college beau, maybe ask him where his hands have been before he starts caressing your pretty face or letting you kiss his fingers.

I can’t really limit this to guys. I’m sure a few women do it, too, but I know men are guilty more often than the fairer sex. I guess I wouldn’t be so paranoid or peeved by this kind of stuff if I didn’t get mildly ill every other week each semester. I’ve considered the possibility that maybe it’s just me. But when I’m not at school, I don’t have this problem. I know. Perhaps, I should just crawl under a hole and never bother another soul. Unfortunately, for you and me, I have to get my degree first; and in the process of doing so, I’ll have to shake hands, share computer lab keyboards and open doors all over campus for at least another year or two – I’m bound to come in contact with trillions of germs.

There’s nothing like sitting in a computer lab next to some guy who’s jamming out to Rachmaninoff on his iPod and playing “World of Warcraft,” and while that brainiac sits there, he coughs a nasty, phlegmy cough into his greasy, sweaty palm every 30 seconds, and goes on using that keyboard and mouse. I guess I shouldn’t be too worried, since some of these dudes do actually take the time to wipe their hands in their hair. Some people don’t actually cough into their hands – they’re smart enough to cough into their elbow or upper arm – these are the people who seem to be aware of more than just themselves.

Honestly, though, if I see you cover your mouth at all, I’ll be surprised. Last year I was leaving a class in the business building and felt a spontaneous blast of warm, damp air splash across the back of my neck. I turned around only to see some creaton recovering from a violent cough. Dude, really? I told the guy he needed to cover his mouth – not that it mattered, the damage was already done. What’s really stupid about all this is that I’m wasting my time saying any of it. While reading this column, you’ve probably picked your nose twice, coughed a loogie onto the page and scratched your butt. Don’t wash your hands, though. You can just wipe them off on the next person you shake hands with.

– D. Whitney Smith is copy editor for The Statesman. Comments on his column can be sent to statesmanoffice@aggiemail.usu.edu.