#1137 Man Handled

At the many public events I go to, I’m often besieged with men coming up to shake hands. As they are luncheon affairs, I’m a little reluctant, and what with H1N1 going around, even more so.
H1N1, what a stupid name. H1N1, it doesn’t sound like a disease, it sounds like a tire size.
In any event, it’s customary in events like this to move from the handshaking-schmoozing phase directly to the buffet line, where everyone then handles the same tongs so they don’t infect the food directly. Of course, they end up infecting each other with the shared tongs.
I’m beginning to see why Howard Hughes locked himself in a hotel room.
As I shook hands with all these guys, I hoped they were the kind of businessmen who were the one in three that actually do wash their hands after they do their business.
Because a recent study found that only one third of men adequately wash their hands after using the toilet. Many of them reported they had only urinated, so needed less washing.
Yeah…
The study also found that signs posted in the bathroom made some difference, but that men responded to more graphic messages. A sign in the women’s bathroom that said, “Water doesn’t kill germs, soap does.” was effective. The same sign in the men’s bathroom was poopooed. The sign that was effective said. “Soap it off or eat it later.”
But look at the messages. Men hate that namby-pamby stuff. “Water doesn’t kill germs, soap does” sounds like some Mrs. Marple aphorism your second grade teacher uttered as she tsk-tsked and waggled her finger at you.
“Soap it off or eat it later” is what your coach would have said in the locker room—that war zone of your emergence into manhood identity. The more brutal and gross the better. The lesson I learned from my coach when I got hit by a line drive to the thigh? “Shake it off and get back on the field.”
Words to live by.
The scary thing about this research? Someone was in the bathroom watching...and getting government grant money for it.
So at least us taxpayers got cleaned...
America, ya gotta love it.