Squimming Pools.

When I was young, I used to go swimming in our little alligator swimming pool in the back yard. Do you remember those alligator swimming pools? They were green hard plastic and had a super tiny like two-foot slide into the water. I was a child of the 1980s (Generra Hypercolor, what what), so maybe you young whippersnappers don't remember alligator swimming pools, but trust me, they were kickass.

Well. During those hot summers, I'd play in our alligator pool, but then, we'd let the water sit and stagnate. It would sit for the entire summer. But I'd still put on my Strawberry Shortcake swimsuit or my fantastic neon suit with the squiggles all over it, and I'd go outside during the dog days and bob about in it.

Most of the time there were mosquito larvae squimming in the water.

I'd still play in it.

I'd swim, me and those larvae. I'd swim.

Which might be the reason today that I nuke our hot tub with fire and put 18 cups of chlorine in our kiddie pool, burning the eyes and flesh of my children.

Hotels AGAIN.

You are all well acquainted with the Things I Do when staying at a hotel.

Remember how I said that the next time I stay at a hotel, I was going to stay in a Hampton Inn? Because they wash their actual duvets and also have kickass hilarian commercials?

Well I think I've just changed my mind. I think the next time I brave a hotel room it will be a Best Western. Because here are the new rules they are implementing:

• Ultra violet (UV) sterilization wands– Wands from Purelight are used to sterilize "high touch points' in the hotel such as telephones, clocks, light switches, door handles, bathroom fixtures and common areas.  [Ed. Note: A recent study found that the main light switch in hotel rooms is the ickiest, germiest, fecal-matterest location in the entire joint, coming in at 112.7 CPU (colony-forming units of bacteria, per cubic centimeter). The recommended level for "cleanliness" is a mere 5 CPU. Why, that's, that's, well, a lot more CPUs. GROCE.]
• UV inspection black lights – These black lights are used as part of the housekeeper inspection process to detect any biological matter [Ed. Note: Read, human spermatozoa], food particles [Ed. Note: Read, vom], and more [Ed. Note: Read, blood and urea], that the human eye cannot see. 
• Clean remotes or wraps for the remote control device – These unique, seamless remote controls are designed specifically to make it easy to clean and disinfect before each guest stay. 
• Pillow and blanket wraps – Extra pillows, blankets and towels are wrapped in 100 percent recyclable and biodegradable single use wraps to ensure guests know that these products have been cleaned just for them. 
• 
  

It sounds good, nay, it sounds outfuckingstanding, but how do we know they will actually adhere to such strict standards? How do we know that Brunhilde the Maid has run a black light over the bed's headboard and bleached away the spooge and vag-hands? that she has used a sterilization wand after Cloroxing the bathtub so as to eradicate bum-bum-chowder germs? How do we know that is has occurred to Brunhilde to sterilize the coffeemaker and the microwave buttons?

In the same vein as not knowing whether Brunhilde has actually disinfected the toilet seat or has actually cleansed the water glasses that are covered with a paltry paper wrapper stating "For Your Convenience," we will never actually know whether anything has actually been cleaned. But, let's just hope they have some semblance of decency in their hearts to actually go through with these hygiene measures. LET US PRAY TO JESUS, CHILD. Pray that hotel employees become more adept at removing fecal coliform and escherichia coli and salmonella and staphylococcus aureus from our vacation spots.

I like where they heads is at, tho, dog. I like where they heads is at. UV wands and black lights and TV remote-control condoms and fresh blanket wraps FOR ALL.

Things I Do.

It's been an AGE since I've done one of these. To be quite honest, I can't remember just which Things I Do I've already shared. Deal, bishes. Anyway, here you go. I present More Things I Do:

• When I close a scissors (a scissor?), I do it very far away from my head, always convinced I'm going to cut off my hair.

• When I drive by a semi-truck or one passes me, I get a major panic attack. Hard to breathe, hard to think, racing heartbeat, goosebumps, the whole deal. I'm just positive that one of their wheels is going to explode, slamming into me and causing my demise, or that the truck will veer out of his lane and into me (I've had too many close calls to refer to this as an unfounded fear).

• You already know this from my Great Wuff post, but when I stay at a hotel, I clean EVERYTHING with Clorox wipes. From the obvious things like the phone, doorknobs, and alarm clocks, to things we will never even touch, like walls and windows and random accoutrement.

Why is this lady's entire arm and elbow touching the filthy floor??

Unacceptable.

One second thought, maybe cleaning the windows isn't a bad idea...

• I have semi-hoarding tendencies. I have a hell of a time trying to get rid of (even donate) things that someone has bought for me. Especially if my mom bought them, since she is dirt poor and she spent HER MONEY on those things. I keep clothes, trinkets, decorations, any object, far longer than I should and have a terrible time parting with them. And books? Forget about it. I keep those fuckers forEVER. This is why our house is cluttered liek woah.

Could be worse. Could be cats.

• I organize the dishwasher because of a paralyzing fear that I will get cut on knives. Knives go in one utensil basket, at the farthest place back, forks go in another, spoons in another, baby spoons in yet another. I never mix utensils. When I reach for the knives, I do so at a pace of about 0.000000001 mile per hour, still convinced I will get cut. Oh and yes, sometimes I reuse and rewash plastic utensils. Suck it, Trebek.

I should have been naked while I took this picture so you'd have a grotesque fun surprise 

when you looked at the shiny stuff.

 Remember this gem?

• When the kids are awake and aren't going to sleep as expected, I want nothing more than for them to sleep, goddammit. When the kids are sleeping soundly, I worry that they have perished, and sometimes I will risk waking them up just to make sure they're alive.

• I have to check the last word of a page several times because I'm convinced I didn't read it or absorb it. I stare at the word for awhile before I can move on to the next page.

• I throw away perfectly good food because I worry it has spoiled. I waste soooo much money this way.

• I think I've mentioned this one before, but I switch spoons or spatulas toward the end of cooking meat or eggs. This is because you use one tool to stir the raw meat or eggs, and as they cook, you jam the same damn  tool back in the pan, reinserting all those grody bacteria. I wait until the meat is almost completely done, then switch tools, then finish cooking it. AND SO SHALL YOU, EVERMORE.

Thus concludes this episode of Things I Do.

Make New Food, and Trash the Old. One Is Silver and the Other's Mold.

Scratch that. Toss the new as well.

I'm sure there's no way in hell this will surprise you, but I also have a...a Thing about old food.

• If I don't know how long something has been sitting in my fridge, I toss it. No matter what. No exceptions. It could look and smell fresh, and it could be something that's not particularly dangerous to eat if it's old, but if I do not know how long it's been opened, I toss it.
• If something with no listed expiration date has been sitting in my fridge for over about four days, I toss it.
• If something with a best-by date has been sitting in my fridge past the best-by date, I toss if, even though that's not a use-by date, merely a best-by date.
• If it's got beans or rice in it, I toss it with a Quickness. Both beans and rice go dangerously bad, quickly.
• If cheese gets white spots or moldy spots, oh honey, that shit is GONE. I know a lot of people just cut off the mold, but eff that in the goat ass. I do not cut mold off of food.
• If it's milk and it has even the barest hint of being sour, down the sink it goes. My husband will drink milk that's moments away from curdling, but I have a fierce sense of smell, and I always sniff milk before using it, and I can smell when it's one hour off.

• Same with bread. Before using any bread or feeding it to my young, I first sniff it. I can smell bread mold like nobody's bidness. As mentioned, I have a keen olfactory system and am particularly sensitive to that sour, moldy smell of bread that's gone off. If it smells OK, I then check every inch of every slice, looking for furry white spots. I inspect every inch of it, front and back, corner to corner, then give it a pass or fail grade. If anything seems remotely wrong, it's in the trash and mommy can't make toast that day.

PASS!!

FAIL!!

I am just basically a really, really extremely overzealous food thrower-awayer. I waste so much food it's tragic. I feel guilty about it, not to mention it's not very good for the budget, but at the same time, the last thing I want to do is ingest salsa spotty with mold or rank mayonnaise or V8 Spicy Hot past its prime or Chicken a la Staphylococcus Aureus.

As mentioned, I know that some people will take a brick of molding cheese and cut a hunk off and call it good, which I understand isn't all that uncommon, but worse yet, some will cut off the moldy hunk of bread and eat the rest, without regard to the fact that the spores have spindly, feathery, moldy, reaching fingers that spread much farther into the soft, soft, tender white flesh of bread where you cannot see yet, and this I will not stand for. I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT! 

What is terribly amusing and unexpected is that the two foods I will use quite a long time after their sell-by date are eggs and yogurt, two foods that most people would be like, "TOSS THAT SHIT LIGHTNING FAST!" Both actually last a very long time, weeks after their sell-by date, and I have no problem consuming some delicious Yoplait on October 19 if it has a sell-by date of October 1. Mmm Yoplait.

And eggs are good quite awhile past their sell-by date as well. We're talking a month or more. I am totally down with eating old eggs. But old bread? No thank you ma'am. Old juice? No way Jose Eber. Old something else? Shove it up your bum-bum.

So with only a few exceptions, basically I let so much food go to waste it's a tragedy. I'm sure most of it is still edible, but I can't deal. I can't deal with the idea that there are invisible mold spores that I might be consuming, whereas someone else might be all, "Oooh, free penicillin. Awesome."

What's your take? Are you a mold-cutter-offer? Do you eat moldy cheese or do you TOSS THAT SHIT SO FAST?

Make New Food, and Trash the Old. One Is Silver and the Other's Mold.

Scratch that. Toss the new as well.

I'm sure there's no way in hell this will surprise you, but I also have a...a Thing about old food.

• If I don't know how long something has been sitting in my fridge, I toss it. No matter what. No exceptions. It could look and smell fresh, and it could be something that's not particularly dangerous to eat if it's old, but if I do not know how long it's been opened, I toss it.
• If something with no listed expiration date has been sitting in my fridge for over about four days, I toss it.
• If something with a best-by date has been sitting in my fridge past the best-by date, I toss if, even though that's not a use-by date, merely a best-by date.
• If it's got beans or rice in it, I toss it with a Quickness. Both beans and rice go dangerously bad, quickly.
• If cheese gets white spots or moldy spots, oh honey, that shit is GONE. I know a lot of people just cut off the mold, but eff that in the goat ass. I do not cut mold off of food.
• If it's milk and it has even the barest hint of being sour, down the sink it goes. My husband will drink milk that's moments away from curdling, but I have a fierce sense of smell, and I always sniff milk before using it, and I can smell when it's one hour off.

• Same with bread. Before using any bread or feeding it to my young, I first sniff it. I can smell bread mold like nobody's bidness. As mentioned, I have a keen olfactory system and am particularly sensitive to that sour, moldy smell of bread that's gone off. If it smells OK, I then check every inch of every slice, looking for furry white spots. I inspect every inch of it, front and back, corner to corner, then give it a pass or fail grade. If anything seems remotely wrong, it's in the trash and mommy can't make toast that day.

PASS!!

FAIL!!

I am just basically a really, really extremely overzealous food thrower-awayer. I waste so much food it's tragic. I feel guilty about it, not to mention it's not very good for the budget, but at the same time, the last thing I want to do is ingest salsa spotty with mold or rank mayonnaise or V8 Spicy Hot past its prime or Chicken a la Staphylococcus Aureus.

As mentioned, I know that some people will take a brick of molding cheese and cut a hunk off and call it good, which I understand isn't all that uncommon, but worse yet, some will cut off the moldy hunk of bread and eat the rest, without regard to the fact that the spores have spindly, feathery, moldy fingers that reach much farther into the soft, soft bread where you cannot see yet, and this I will not stand for. I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT! 

What is terribly amusing and unexpected is that the two foods I will use quite a long time after their sell-by date are eggs and yogurt, two foods that most people would be like, "TOSS THAT SHIT WITH A QUICKNESS!" Both actually last a very long time, weeks after their sell-by date, and I have no problem consuming some delicious Yoplait on October 19 if it has a sell-by date of October 1. Mmm Yoplait.

And eggs are good quite awhile past their sell-by date as well. We're talking a month or more. I am totally down with eating old eggs. But old bread? No thank you ma'am. Old juice? No way Jose Eber. Old something else? Shove it up your bum-bum.

So with only a few exceptions, basically I let so much food go to waste it's a tragedy. I'm sure most of it is still edible, but I can't deal. I can't deal with the idea that there are invisible mold spores that I might be consuming, whereas someone else might be all, "Oooh, free penicillin. Awesome."

What's your take? Are you a mold-cutter-offer? Do you eat moldy cheese or do you TOSS THAT SHIT SO FAST?

Ass Soup & Crack'ers.

Why do people take baths together? Why, in the name of the Father, the son, and the holy toast, why?

Isn't it just sitting there stewing in what I have deemed Ass Soup?

Oooh. Nothing says I love you like butt-soap froth on your face.

Solo baths are bad enough. When I want to take a bath, I shower first. It's just a Thing I Do. I wash all my bits in the shower, and then I soak in the tub, fresh as the proverbial daisy. I realize this is just too much effort for the vast majority of the American Public at Large. That it just doesn't occur to people to wash their asses before soaking in butt stew. But to soak with another person in butt stew, hiney goulash, or ass soup...it just--I--you can't--you must--you fucking have to realize, THAT'S. JUST. GROSS.

Because...because...

ASS SOUP.

Now listen. I've done it. I've taken baths with boys before. WHOA, SHOCKER.

But I have. I've done it. And it was que romántica, especially as we lounged there to a CD full of soft Celtic tunes. But that was years ago, long before my OCD took a sharp turn for the worse.

And now, those romantic baths of yore are Right Out. Right out. Sorry, husband.

We also have a hot tub, and even though that bitch is chlorifuckinated to the max, I STILL have a hard time soaking in it with someone.

Before heading out to go lounge in it for a bit with my main man, I will ask nonchalantly, "How's your ass?" And he will answer without hesitation, "Pristine." Because he knows I don't even want to soak in a hot tub full of CHLORINE BLEACH-WATER with someone else's ass. That's OCD for ya.

[I'm sorry, I'd add one of my awesome pictures here, but Googling "two butts in a hot tub" did not yield any image results that I want my husband to see when he reads my blog. Sorry honey."]


Wait! Here's a safe one.

 What what, chicken butt!!

And another!

If that don't want to make you soak in butt stew, I don't know what will.

But still. All you people who take baths with your significant others. How do you do it? I've done it, in the ancient past, but remind me: How do you do it? Doesn't it bother you? Do you mind? Do you shower first? Will you still do it now that I've brought it to your attention? Will you now wonder, WWJD (What Would Jo Do)? Will you now forevermore be a little squicked out by sitting in bum-bum chowder? You're welcome.

Things I Do, Strawberry Edition.

As recently mentioned, you know that one of the Things I Do is to wash all my produce with not just water, but soap and water. Well, some things are tougher to wash with soap, like strawberries. I mean, I guess I could, but it would take an awful lot of elbow grease and a decade and a half of rinsing the suds off. I'd have a rather sudsy sitchyation.

So instead I go the saltwater route.

Saltwater, you say? You're either thinking, "Wouldn't that make your fruit taste like salt?"* or you're thinking "How can that clean my strawberries thoroughly?"

* But then you're probably the same people who think that washing produce with soap makes them taste like soap. :)

Well. To you naysayers, let me first tell you that actually, the salt enhances the sweetness of the strawberries. I mean, I guess if you soaked them for like three days in a super-saturation of saltwater, sure, they'd be a little on the savory side. But a 15 minute soak or so and they're delicious.

And second, does saltwater clean strawberries? First of all, salt acts as somewhat of a disinfectant. Further, let me just say--well, no, let me just show you. Pictures speak louder than words. Recently, I prepared some strawberries for the eatin', and documented it just for you, fair reader.

First I thoroughly rinsed my strawberries in a strainer under running water, giving them each a little hand scrubbing. Then I soaked them in saltwater.

(Note the Lysol Wipes in the background. Snorf.)

Then I took them out and rinsed them off again. This is what was left.

Pretty grim.

Those were all the bum-bum germs that were still on those berries after a very thorough rinsing.

In summary, mama's little Strawberry Shortcake says, for the love of God, people, pretty please soak your strawberries (all berries actually) in saltwater before consuming! Do it for the children!

Things I Do, Cont'd.

We have't done one of these in awhile. Let's continue the non-exhaustive list of Things I Do.

• I always wash my hands before I unload clean dishes and put them away.
• I also always wash my hands after loading up the dirty dishes.
• I always wash my hands after putting a dirty load of clothes into the washer.
• I also always wash my hands after putting a clean, wet load of laundry into the dryer, as previously covered.
• I wash the top of pop cans, soup cans, veggie cans, well, all cans, before opening them. Especially tuna lids, because you use that lid to squeeze all the water out, and all the germs that were on that lid now find their way into your tuna.
• If I take my shoes off at another person's house for whatever reason, I change socks upon coming home.
• If I wore flip-flops that day and had to go barefoot at their house, I use alcohol-wipes on my feet when I come home. I know right?
• Hey, I didn't say I was proud of this.
• At least I don't go the Howard Hughes route.

• I wash my hands after cracking eggs.
• If I have to Have At my nose (scratching, rubbing, whatever), I wash afterward and then use hand sani too, and I scrape my nails across my hand-sanied palm to get the sani under my nails.
• On the advice of a friend, I use tea tree oil shampoo in Maya's hair to hopefully ward off lice from preschool.
• I Clorox-wipe all the items I receive in the mail, including sanitizing my sanitizer, and I order from Amazon constantly, so I am getting things like every day.
• And let's wrap up today's list with this gem: I always, always shake and flap my towels vigorously before using them to dry my body. I step out of the shower, grab my towel, and shake it. This comes from growing up in a house full of cats, who loved to lounge upon the clean laundry, so I always had to shake the cat hair off (GROCE). My husband and I have had cats at one point, who of course similarly lounged upon the clean laundry. But the thing is, we don't have cats now, and haven't for quite a long while, and I also was sans le chat for years and years in my young twenties, but the shaking of the towels is so, so ingrained that I will do it forever.

More Things I Do to come.

Why I Share My Dirty Little Secrets.

Or rather, my very very overly clean ones.

I've been asked by a couple people, why am I doing this? Because sometimes it hurts. It hurts to share a lot of the Things I Do. It's embarrassing. It's really, really embarrassing. (And I haven't even gotten to The Big One yet.) So why do I bare my soul to all of you? Many, many of you are people I've known for years, and who I know in real life, and the most you knew was that maybe I had a few little tics. Maybe you knew that I'm a "bit" of a germaphobe. Maybe you knew I washed my apples with soap, or soaked my strawberries in salt water.*

*That's a post for next time!

But all of a sudden, I come out with this blog and I'm confessing that I go nuclear on the house with Lysol spray after a guest leaves, or I refuse to allow my child to play at mall play areas, or I hold my breath when I walk by people, or I check that the back door is locked 27 times a night, etc. Suddenly I'm confessing to you things that are difficult to confess to. Why? Why do I do this to myself?

I've come across a few quotes recently that pretty much sum it up. Here's an oldie but a goodie:

"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." -Erma Bombeck

Well, Lawd knows I'm trying to make it better, but I'm having little actual success so far, at least as far as brain circuitry and chemistry is concerned. So, yeah, what's left but to laugh? And to try to make you laugh? My heart swells with pride when I hear that I've made just one of you smile. I love to make you laugh. I want to make you laugh. If that's the only thing I have control over, if that's the one thing I have success at, it's what I'll aim to do.

Here's the second quote that resonated:

"This is pretty much all I've got...And I'm not saying [it's] fun. Every time we meet, I complain. I moan. I get mad and throw a hot potato fit. But here's the things: I like telling my stories. It feels like I'm doing something concrete about it. When I leave, the concrete in my chest has loosened, melted down so I can breathe for a few days."  

-From The Help

This is pretty much all I've got. I don't see a lot of friends in person very often, and in fact the couple of friends who I do hang out with, they don't know about this blog. (See, of course, the Acid Test friends!) So it is here at Poop on a Hot Tin Slide, and to my poor poor husband, that I rant about germs. And the "doing something concrete" about it part is that I feel like I'm sharing something important--something important to me. I'm "spreading the word." I'm sharing tips 'n trix on how to be a little safer, a little cleaner, in my OCD Land. And I'm sharing what it's like in my mind, what the world look like to me. How scary it can be, and how it can be made better and less scary. And healthier for all!

I'm also trying to show people that even though I have a "disorder" of types, I can think clearly. I can have valid opinions (for example, on the dreaded Hygiene Hypothesis). Some people think my mind is clouded by OCD, that I can't see clearly through it or form an educated opinion because of it, but just because I don't like to shake hands with people doesn't mean I can't read research or formulate a concrete position on a theory.

I also hope to show people that just because I fall outside the realm of "typical" does NOT MAKE ME WRONG. The fact that I'm in the minority when I come home and immediately wash my hands does not make me wrong--in fact, I think it's a very appropriate thing to do. It's not the most common practice, but neither is taking off your shoes here in the U.S--while in Asian countries, it is. So who's to judge what's unusual or atypical? And if it is indeed outside the realm of typical, who's to judge if it's wrong?

I also blog because I have found a few kindred spirits. People saying, "OMG ME TOO! I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!" I love finding out that I am not the only one. Not that I should be the only one, people. Washing your hands and taking care not to spread Teh Sick is stuff we learned in kindergarten. I mean CUB OD. It's stuff we see on TV commercials. Stuff we see on signs all over doctors offices or workplaces. Messages in children's books. Entire shows devoted to the topic on Sid the Science Kid, for baby Jesus' sake.

. . .

Anyway. To sum up. I do this for me, to lighten the load. I do this for you, to make you laugh. And I do this for mankind, to save us all from bat flu.

Oh, plus, I'm dying for a little internet fame. Bygones.

Things I Do, Hotel Edition.

So, hotels. *dry heaves* Pardon me. So, hotels.

It doesn't matter whether it's a nice hotel or a crappy motel. I've been to some gorgeous resorts, and I've been to some really shitty places. My reaction to them all is the same: horror, terror, and disgust.

• The blankets. The very, very first thing I do upon entering our room is either tear the damn thing off altogether, or fold the duvet and blanket all the way down, and then fold the top sheet over it all or part of the way. There is no way that duvet or banket is going to touch my flesh at any point during the night. (If I notice in the night that my husband has pulled it up over him, I will mull over a trial separation outright yank it back off him. Sorry, honey.) Neither will I sit or lounge upon the bedspread during the day. The top blankets get folded all the way down or thrown off. If we freeze in the night? Tough shit.

• I lift the top sheet and look all the way down to the bottom to make sure there are no unexpected, er, surprises.

• Then I flip over the pillows, because the duvet has been folded over them.

Although I realize that making the bed in this fashion also means that the duvet has touched the other side of the pillow, too. Lose-lose. :( I say a lengthy prayer to the Patron Saint of Headlice (and a quick one to the Patron Saint of Spooge) and hope all goes well. The one thing I cannot bring myself to do is bring a blacklight to a hotel room. I would never be the same. At the least, I could never travel again; at most, you'd have to commit me.

• The very next thing I do is attack everything with Clorox wipes. Everything. The bedside tables. The dresser. The dresser handles. The doorknobs. The closet doors. The tub. The toilet seat (even after disinfecting it, I still put down toilet paper on the seat before I use it). The toilet handle. The sink faucets. The phone. The alarm clock. And the remote. Oh God, the remote. I've even been known to disinfect it, and then still put it in a plastic bag. Just think how many people using that bed have just finished making filthy nasty deviant sweet sweet love and then upon completion, reach for the remote to find a nice program on the tee-vee to relax to. Just think.

• The suitcases never touch the carpet or the beds. They go up on a fold-out luggage rack, if possible, or I put a towel under them. This is common-sense advice, and word is spreading.

• The carpets. First, I will not walk in a hotel without my shoes on. I even take them into the bathroom with me so that after I've showered, I can stand right on the bathmat and put on my socks and shoes.

• The drinking glasses! Ye gods! I would sooner drink from a drinking fountain* than use one of those cups. At least not without a long, hot scrubbing. You KNOW those things aren't sanitized, even with those "nice effort, thanks for trying" plastic covers over them (that aren't sealed in any way). You KNOW the maid has just finished wiping down the toilet before giving those glasses a brief rinse. You KNOW they are festering with The Herp. Bygones.

*Just kidding, no I wouldn't. Drinking fountains are positively swarming with nasty bacteria and viruses, not to mention the occasional birdshit. And even though the water arcs away from the spigot, think of how water dribbles from your mouth right back down onto that spigot. So the water is arcing, yes, but arcing OUT of a spigot covered in nastiness. But I digest.

• Showering is a tough one. I usually feel dirtier after showering at a hotel than before. After washing my feet in the shower, I re-wash my hands right then and there. Then, when exiting, I touch the shower curtain at the very tip-top, as high as I can reach, where other people haven't touched immediately after washing their own assholes.

And I lose my damn mind when the shower curtain billows in, touching my body, conforming to it, vacuum-sealing to it, like white on lice, no matter what I do. You know that's happened to you. It is horrifying.

But, you know what? Even after all of my attempts to clean and disinfect, I still touch everything with a Kleenex, Howard-Hughes style.

Because all the Lysol in the world couldn't kill 
what lives in a hotel. And I don't just mean in Room 237.