Stop Touching Your Face

This is a follow-up to Stop Pre-Germing the Paper Towels .  This is a photo of a public restroom. It's at a funky angle but it captures the important details best. There are a number of things about this bathroom that could be improved. Not shown: The hooks on the inside of the bathroom doors are not very good. The changing table could be inside the handicapped stall so mom and baby have privacy and you aren't blocking traffic. But I've only once walked in on someone changing a baby and making it difficult to get to the stalls, so that's probably a high cost to low benefit ratio. The single biggest thing you could do to improve this bathroom is completely free: The trash can could be moved into the corner by the door.  This would reduce traffic issues when someone is changing a baby and -- most importantly -- stop Pre-Germing the Paper Towels. There are probably other bathrooms where just moving the trash can would be a big improvement.

Snopes did a piece in 2006 on Purses and E. Coli  and concluded that women ROUTINELY set their purses on public restroom floors near the toilet and then later that same day they set the same purse on the table where they eat . Regardless of gender, if you carry any kind of bag, don't put it on the bathroom floor if at all possible. If you are not urgently about to mess yourself, take a moment to think about where to put your bag before using the toilet. I suggest you also wash hands before retrieving your bag if that's a reasonable thing to arrange. I'm aware that if the restroom is busy , that may not really work. Alternately, try to wipe yourself with one hand and grab your bag with the other.  (This tends to only work with smaller bags and IF both hands are unimpaired and you trend moderately ambidextrous. I'm right handed but I am somewhat often asked if I'm a lefty or ambidextrous because I do more than average left-handed.) If you must set it on the floor or g...

Germ Control in Public Spaces  is what is left of a previous incarnation of this blog and it says in part: Try to position trash cans where it doesn't actively spread germs. Ideally, NOT directly below the paper towel dispenser or immediately next to the sink.  I've taken photos of the paper towel situation in three public bathrooms.  Bathroom one is an older Women's bathroom with multiple stalls. These photos were taken in the morning shortly after the establishment opened. Most likely, I was the first person to use the restroom in question on the day in question and the trash visible in one of the trash receptacles was likely there all night. In this bathroom, the paper towels are typically visible like they are here and that means these paper towels were within inches of trash all night. I try to avoid this bathroom and if I must use it, I typically remove a paper towel and trash it, rewash my hands and then get a cleanish paper towel to dry wit...

It last three months and it's NOT caused by the weather or POLLEN.  It's caused by people pulling Halloween decorations out of storage in October and Thanksgiving decorations out of storage in November and Christmas decorations out of storage in December and it doesn't end until all the residences and commercial establishments thrilled to coat their building in mildewed decor STOP because it's now January. And I wish people would either STOP decorating ENTIRELY or at least do something that doesn't damage their health and MINE because I still have to SHOP even though I don't do this nonsense and I still have to be exposed to all the rest of the people coughing and sneezing and sniffling from this self inflicted and while they pretend it's something we can't prevent and we're too stupid to add one and one and get TWO.

I use self checkout a lot in part because so many cashiers lick their fingers to help them open plastic bags that aren't opening promptly. This is maybe less of a problem since the pandemic, but some cashiers do this so habitually, they don't notice that they do it and will deny it if you say anything about it to them. And will be offended if you ask them to use the hand sanitizer that most cashiers have at their station since the pandemic. Businesses should expressly make this a policy and work on establishing protocols for how to handle bags that are being difficult to open without licking your fingers as the solution.

In some contexts, untouchable is a high status thing.  Commoners are typically not supposed to touch kings and queens and as someone with a serious, incurable medical condition and compromised immune system, I've often thought that my life would be vastly better if ordinary people got their bodily autonomy respected similar to kings and queens.  We don't actually need servants to handle THAT.  Most Walmart bathrooms have no doors and are spacious and provide a public space where strangers can avoid touching each other for germ control reasons.  1. You need space designed to serve that goal.  2. And you need social and cultural practices that support that, such as bowing to show respect instead of shaking hands to greet people.  Multiple older cultures with dense populations bow in greeting (instead of shaking hands), have spicy cuisine and other practices in line with my views of germ control. I'm guessing morons like MERIKA get a Darwin Award at some poin...