I'd like to add to this story this recent study: that fast food ice has more bacteria in it than fast food toilet water.

I'm not surprised by these findings. The bottom line is that most people wash their hands after using the bathroom. Bathrooms are dilligently cleaned more than other places. The bathroom has a bad rep because it's associated with the ultimate cultural negative. In reality, as this study shows, there are a lot worse places.

And I bet the toilet flush handle is even cleaner than the bathroom door handle. The reason the bathroom door handle ranks so high, I bet, is because people touch it with wet hands, and bacteria thrives on moisture.

And this raises one further question: since bacteria are clearly everywhere, do we really need to worry about them? After all, we live in symbiotic harmony with a thousand types of bacteria in our body. Just because bacteria is growing doesn't mean it's going to hurt us.

I remember reading about the shopping cart handles. The amount of bacteria on them may also have to do with people putting their children in the kid seat. Get a one year old who manages to stick a hand in a dirty diaper and there ya go. Also handling leaky meat packages (always a pleasure) probably doesn't help keep the germs down on the handle either. One of the grocery stores I go has a stand with the disinfecting wipes by the carts for the germophobes.

Dave-O's comment about germs being everywhere is well-taken. Unless our immune systems are challenged or defunct (in the case of AIDS), they will destroy the overwhelming majority of germs we come in contact with whenever and wherever.

Washing hands, particularly when handling food, is a good health practice. But there's no need to be germophobic about daily life. If we could see the microbes that live all over our bodies through a microscope, we might want to crawl out of our skins.

I flush the toilet with my foot. I find it too likely that the handle will have poo on it, since it gets flushed after pooping and before handwashing. If the bathroom door opens out, I use my knee or elbow to open it. Otherwise, I usually have my paper towel still in my hand any way. I'm not what one would call a germophobe. I pick up and eat food that I have dropped on my filthy floor. I just find that these ways of navigating public toilets, don't cost me any extra time or effort. Why not avoid contact with potential poopee deposits.

_______
SamDamnit!
President in Exile
of Poopreportia
http://www.myspace.com/saintcarnivean

Thanks for firing off my germophobia, AB! I am so glad that it is becoming a trend where I live (until March, anyway) to have sanitary wipes next to the cart return so you can sterilize the handle before touching it.

I would think the thing that has the most germs would not be the bathroom door but the water faucet on the sink. Most people I've noticed touch this after getting out of the bathroom to wash their hands and then touch it again once they have washed them. It sort of defeats the purpose. This is what I use the paper towel to operate, not the bathroom door!

Oh, and watch those mints they offer at the cash register in a restaurant. A study found that such buckets contain fecal material and little drops of urine. Mostly this is because people come out of the bathroom without washing up and immediately grab a mint from the bucket. Gross!

Though, I suppose eating one of those mints could count as urine therapy.

This is just damn Great! Now I got to carry around a bottle of Lysol and spray the damn shopping cart when I go to the store.

I'm going to die or cooties!

_______
Have a Crappy Day!! Poop Shooter!

Wow! What store is it that offers wipeys? Great idea! Re: Purell, I THOUGHT I read somewhere that it's not as magical as some people seem to think. The article I read said that it took up to 30 minutes for the stuff to kill anything. If you say, change a poopy diaper at the park, then use hand sanitizer, then go ahead and dig into the Subway you picked up on the way over, you're eating with poopy hands. It works much better as a DEFENSE against GETTING germy when applied when your hands are CLEAN. Yet I've seen any number of mommies ply their yard-apes' grubby paws with the stuff, then hand 'em their pb&j. In the absence of running water, I usually use a baby wipe, then squirt with drinking water (ubiquitous), and finish with another wipey. Purell is a false sense of cleanliness.

All those chemical soaked wipey cloths are bad for the enviroment, you know. I just thought I would throw that in there.

_______
SamDamnit!
President in Exile
of Poopreportia
http://www.myspace.com/saintcarnivean

Good report AB2K, I've read somewhere that one of the most bacteria laden items in the home is the dishcloth. I will touch a public bathroom door but like TSV I'll use a paper towel to turn on the water (use the foot to flush always). I think the media is doing a big job of cranking up the scare tactics so we buy a product that addresses the scare.

I'm with Sam. I usually try to flush with my foot in a public restroom, if possible.

But if we start thinking about the number of germs we ingest on a daily basis, we will all wind up like Howard Hughes. I mean, what happens when I put my face between (or, at least used to put my face between) Hermione's loamy

***POST TERMINATED BY PR MODERATOR***

Dumpster, we keep hearing more and more about Hermione but you never seem to "finish the post". This most recent comment has me wondering what sort this lady is, Websters defines loamy as :
1 a : a mixture (as for plastering) composed chiefly of moistened clay b : a coarse molding sand used in founding
2 : SOIL; specifically : a soil consisting of a friable mixture of varying proportions of clay, silt, and sand

So are you really saying she's a filthy, dirty girl?

Bunga, I KNOW you have more of the soul of the poet than that. "Loamy" also means, "rich, fertile, productive," but also "soft and yielding."

And, yeah, I need to quit talking about her. I'm just trying to get people to feel sorry for me, and that gets you nowhere. As the old Victorian poetess, Ella Wheeler Willcox, said:

"Laugh and the world laughs with you.
Weep, and you weep alone:
For this stolid old earth
Has need of your mirth,
It has troubles enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will echo it:
Sigh, and it's lost on the air;
For they want full measure
Of all your pleasure,
But nobody wants your care.
Feast, and your halls are crowded,
Fast, and they'll pass you by;
Succeed and give,
And they'll let you live,
But fail - and they'll let you die."

I used to put hand lotion on the shoping cart handles when I was a young punk. Cool expressions when people looked at it...even better when they tried to figure out what to do with it.
Have I changed.....????...ask my ex..:{

Bunga...If Dumpster is saying that....you just made him very happy..

Asphincter says WHAT...(!)

Very touching poetry Dumpster but I could have sworn I saw that same poem on a friends T shirt and it said:
"Laugh and the world laughs with you
Fart, and you stand alone."

I believe that shopping cart handles are dirtier, not because they're bigger than a doorknob but because people touch all kinds of crap then touch them. Then they sneeze all over them, babies drool on them, people scratch/pick parts of their bodies then touch them... they're pretty gross.

Most grocery stores around here have a disinfectant wipe dispenser near the shopping carts so you can wipe the handle clean before you touch the cart. They're always empty, though.

As a kid in the eighties, I used to scrounge for change in phone booths (remember those?), video game machines, and soda machines. At some point, I noticed that I was getting some nasty stuff on my fingers, every time that I dipped them in a change slot. I found out that another young punk was going around hocking loogies in to the change slots. I found out who it was and threw a dead cat down his chimney.

If I survived all the germs that I was exposed to back then, I can certainly survive with out antiseptic wipes.

_______
SamDamnit!
President in Exile
of Poopreportia
http://www.myspace.com/saintcarnivean

The whole germ-o-phobia things drives me nuts. We over sanitize and over medicate everything. This is why some of the nastiest strains of drug resistant microbes show up in hospitals. Now, don't get me wrong, I am all for cleanliness. But, I'm not going to shave my body, sit in the corner of a stainless steel room with a can of Lysol and mutter something about the "Spruce Goose."

If a peanut M & M falls on the floor, I'm going to eat eat. Judge me if you must.

Bunga, the t-shirt I have says,

"Fart and the world laughs at you,
Shit and you shit alone."

Poo-etic justice there, don't you think?

It's easier to wash your own hands than it is to go around cleaning and disinfecting everything.
I'm still going to open a public restroom door with a paper towel and wipe my kids' hands with a baby wipe when we get out of a store. Call me paranoid, I don't care, lol.

Well thank yoooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, Dave. An ice cold Diet Coke from Mac's has just lost all of it's splendor now........

Ah fuck.

_______
.....hugging bunnies since 1969

Put a little Jack Daniel's in it. That will kill all the germs.

Hey, did I tell you I'm having company this weekend? Jack is coming over to stay the whole time!

Eh, forget JD to sterilise your soda. Go with 95% ethanol, found in any decently stocked chemistry lab. Pure ethanol is somewhat more difficult to come by.

Cracktacular, I am not like Howard Hughs...

Wait, I live in Nevada and hide from germs...

Never mind.

I flush the toilet with my foot when possible in a public restroom and have learned through my years working in health care to cover the faucet handles with a paper towel before turning them off. Then I open the bathroom door using only the pinky and ring finger of my left hand. But that's as germophobic as I'm going to bother getting. They really are everywhere and if your immune system isn't compromised, taking normal precautions in most situations should work well enough.

_______
Have a crappy day!
La Petomaine