Is it just me, or do you think of the word hygiene whenever you say hi to someone named Jean?
Speaking of hygiene, I just visited an airport Men’s Room that only had warm air blowers to dry your hands – no towels. They might as well just hang up a sign that says We Encourage You Not to Wash Your Hands.
Personally, I’m so afraid of cooties that I wash my hands about forty times a day. But even I had to pause and wonder if the time commitment would be worth it. I know there’s some scientific principle involved whereby the movement of the warm air will, in theory, hasten the drying process. In practice, I’m fairly certain it’s nothing but evaporation plus the placebo affect combined with a process I call “giving up” and walking out with wet hands.
In the end, my fear of cooties trumped my distaste for inefficient Men’s Room technology and I went for it. As I stood there for what seemed an eternity, my thoughts drifted to my highly absorbent pants. Would it be so wrong to cut 60 seconds off of this process and just wipe my hands on the sides of my pants, carefully avoiding the crotch area?
So I picked two strategically unimportant pant areas, finished the job that the placebo started and went on my way. But I couldn’t feel good about it.