Article 96072 of alt.peeves: From: charlie@antipope.org (Charlie Stross) Newsgroups: alt.peeves Subject: Re: Restroom Peeves (was: The Castle of the Clueless) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 09:01:58 GMT Organization: Chateau Antipope retirement home for senescent computers Message-ID: References: <6l0gk7$t4g$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6l1lru$m5j$1@its.hooked.net> Reply-To: charlie @ nospam . antipope . org NNTP-Posting-Host: demsys.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: demsys.demon.co.uk:158.152.129.186 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 896864518 nnrp-07:711 NO-IDENT demsys.demon.co.uk:158.152.129.186 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-No-Archive: yes X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) Lines: 50 Path: news1.meer.net!nntp2.ba.best.com!news1.best.com!newsfeed.nacamar.de!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!demsys.demon.co.uk!charlie Xref: news1.meer.net alt.peeves:96072 In the name of Kibo the Compassionate, the Merciful, on Tue, 2 Jun 1998 22:32:09 GMT,Geoff Miller the supplicant implored: > >Peeve: cootie freaks. Supplemental peeve; people who are freaked out about the washing of hands in bathrooms. Some years back I had to do a course in pharmaceutical microbiology. One of the enlightening things they got us undergrads to do was this: * take three sterile agar plates * press your thumb on plate (a), then incubate * wash your hands _thoroughly_ with soap and hot water, use a hot air dryer, then press your thum on plate (b), and incubate * wash your hands _again_, using a surgical scrub (chlorhexidine or povidone iodine) and surgical procedures, _then_ press your thumb on plate (c), and incubate The results at 48 hours are enlightening. It seems that soap and water do jack shit to remove bacteria from human skin; they maybe reduce the surface population by 10-30%, which is so little that it will be back up to normal within 30 minutes or so (given how fast the little breeders, er, breed). Both plates (a) and (b) were green fuzz after two days of incubation. Plate (c), however, was clear; when you combine detergents with a fairly powerful bactericide, _then_ you get cootie-free hands. It follows that there isn't much point to washing your hands after using the toilet _unless_ you pissed on them, or fiddled with your turds to find out how much fibre you've been eating, or something. Now for a confession. I have eczema on my hands. It's nasty enough that I occasionally need hospital treatment for it -- not recently, luckily, but my hands have the skin of an eighty-year-old, thin and papery and damaged by chronic corticosteroid use. If I shampoo my hair I have to apply medication for a couple of days afterwards; if I wash my hands and use the crappy commercial soaps most washrooms provide bits of my skin falls off. So when I use a washroom (other than at home, where I have appropriate Stuff to hand) I take care not to piss or shit on my hands -- and leave without washing them, either. Want to make something of that? -- Charlie "Given two unrelated technical terms, an internet search engine will retrieve only resumes." -- Schachter's Hypothesis