Germaphobes

I got together with a few friends from high school a couple weeks ago. I've been friends with all of them for 25+ years.

One of them arrived at the hotel and pulled out a plastic bag filled with purell and clorox wipes and Lysol.

I said, "Jeez man, we're at the Westin in Minneapolis, not a Travel Lodge in East Palo Alto."

He said, "My wife sent it along. She made me promise to wipe everything down, so if you talk to her, pretend I did..."

He said his wife wipes everything down before anyone in their family sits anywhere. He said she does it at restaurants, other people's houses, church, movie theaters, amusement parks etc... He said she's always been a germaphobe, but just that it came to a whole new level after they had kids. He said she's offended more than few people by pulling out the purell wipes at inopportune times.

I'm seeing this more and more often lately... I have an in-law who steam cleans her own toilets weekly because of germs and created a scene at a restaurant when her son ate a piece of bread straight off a table that had just been cleaned rather than off a plate.

Anyone else seeing this kind of behavior? Anyone here an admitted germaphobe? Some of this stuff seems straight out of an episode of Monk.

 

They're doing more harm than good. Kids need exposure to germs to build up their immune system.

 

I see it. I don't get it. Granted there are some nasty viruses and bacteria out there, but unless your immune system is compromised what is the harm of being exposed to stuff you are exposed to on a daily basis? Plus, all that anti-bacterial soaps/cleaners out there are just making bacteria stronger.

 

I'll bet his wife is phenomenal in bed.

 

I worked with a guy who travelled with a can of Lysol so he could spray down hotel rooms

I worked with another guy who would close his eyes in elevators to keep germs from entering his system.

 

I worked with guys who would clip fingernails at their desks.

I wish the guy with the Lysol had stopped by and soaked them.

 

I consider myself a mild germaphobe in some ways....So I'm not full-on nuts like the woman you describe above, but I can empathize. My biggest fear is that 30 years from now I'm Howard Hughes locked in my house.

This isn't something you can just bring up to your friend, obviously, but she may have mild to moderate OCD. I know it's something we all joke about, but my aunt struggled with that and once she got her OCD under control, her life was so much better.

 

Any worthwhile germaphobe doesn't eat food prepared outside of his or her watch.

I admit to finding pleasure in pointing out obvious holes in these people's systems. Germs are entirely unavoidable.

 

I can feel the dirty looks when my 20-month-old is sucking on the grocery cart handle. Never really kept any of the kids from such simple pleasures. And really, none of them have ever been that sick.

 

It's fun to tell these people you took a drink of their just-opened Diet Coke while they were in the bathroom. Even though they know you're lying, they still throw it out once it's planted in their mind.

 

Purell does not, apparently, because of the way it attacks the bacteria. It was in a New Yorker story about the product a couple months ago.

My wife fits this mold, big-time. And I'm the opposite. I'll take a Diet Coke into the men's room and sit it on top the urinal while I go. Makes for some high comedy at times. Can't believe she married me.

 

I close my eyes or look upward when on crowded elevators because I'm claustrophobic, not germaphobic.