Sometimes When We Touch

This morning in the elevator lobby at work, there was a new addition to the family. No, there was no live birth right there for all to applaud but rather a lovely and new hand sanitizer dispenser hung by the chimney with care.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this stuff does not taste good. But putting it on your hands, I’ll go along with that.

People have actually made fun of me just because I have a bottle of this gloopy magic sauce right on my desk. ‘Real men don’t sanitize’ and the like.

I tend to find it useful to have a bottle nearby after such non Olympic sports as picking my nose, scratching my ear and sneezing into my hand and looking at it to name a few.

One of the several hundred reasons I'm an advocate for using hand sanitizer is the people I work with. Some might describe this group as business professionals. It would be truer I think to characterize them more as filthy bacteria laden death carriers but that's just me.

Several of the upstanding citizens I'm forced to work in proximity of do not wash their hands after anything they've done in the bathroom. I mean these are the people in my neighborhood damn it!

I'm sure they're in your neighborhood too. Why there's one now telling a funny story and touching your arm in a non threatening work appropriate manner!

Hey, another one just held the door open for you, awww, chivalry's not dead!

Thanks for hitting the elevator button for me, and for wiping your face and then shaking my hand. Don't get any on me is all I want to scream at them.

Having done my part by pointing at the signs that teach you how to wash your hands posted all over the bathroom and telling everyone else your name and dirty little secret, I'd like to say this.

When we all drop dead of the bird flu, look for me. I’ll be the guy with the smug look on his face and all the Purell frequent flyer points. Oh I’ll be dead too but at least my hands will be clean.