Fun Friendly Phobic Fact Friday!

"Dude, Five-Second Rule!"

The five-second rule is a myth. But you know that deep down, don't you? Studies found that "where the food contacts the floor, there’s just as much transfer in 5 seconds as in 60."

Bum Raps.

Years ago, Terrence Howard said something that had ladies all across the land up in arms. Here is what he said, when asked what his relationship "deal-breakers" were:

"Toilet paper - and no baby wipes - in the bathroom. If they're using dry paper, they aren't washing all of themselves. It's just unclean. So if I go in a woman's house and see the toilet paper there, I'll explain this. And if she doesn't make the adjustment to baby wipes, I'll know she's not completely clean."

People freaked out. People lost it. People flipped their shits (pun intended). Me? I was kinda like,

Women all over started accusing him of hating women, of being a misogynist, of being a disgusting pig of a man.

I beg to differ.

I don't think he was saying women and parts specific only to women are gross and dirty and filthy. I don't think he was one step away from ranting about how women should cover up their dirty pillows.

I don't think he had to have been specifically talking about women at all, or girlybits, except that he was asked what deal-breakers were in a relationship with women. I don't think he was saying a lady-garden was gross or needed superfluous attention or that he wouldn't give you some lovin if you didn't douche with Lysol.

I think he was saying bum-bums are nasty, Which they are, and dry toilet paper does not do the trick, Which it doesn't, whether you are male or female, Which is the truth.

We here at Poop on a Hot Tin Slide are a baby-wipe family. It's just the Slider House Rules. We have baby wipes on every toilet tank in the house, and by Maya's little potty chair. I mean, people don't wipe sweet little infant bum-bums with dry toilet paper, do they? Because that would be disgusting and would never, ever get them clean, correct? It would just smear it about?

So why do we scrub at our own bum-bums with dry scratchy paper and call it good? 

(Can I just say as a sidenote, I wonder how many FBI watch-lists I'm on because of how many times a day I search Google Images for things like, "baby butts," "tiny bum bums," "kids bending over," etc."? ...)

Anyway, I feel the same way Terrence Howard does about adults needing to use baby wipes too. Why do I want to get frisky with someone and slip a playful hand down his trou to tweak a cheek if he isn't a baby-wipe kind of dude? Why do I want to take a bath with* or hop in a sexy sexy hot tub with anyone who hasn't thoroughly wet-wiped their crack until it is positively gleaming?

* Well, the answer is, I don't. But that's a story for another time, child.

Anyway, I think Terrence Howard got a bum rap (pun intended). Ba dum bum (pun intended).  Poor guy just meant that scrubbing about at your poopy rear-end with some scratchedy-ass paper (or is that scratchedy ass-paper? Oh hyphen you mock me) isn't going to get you pristine. He didn't say girls is nasty.

Mr. Howard, I salute and support you. Wet wipes for one and for all, not just for babies.

Hand Sani Roundup.

I thought it might be interesting to show you the amount and placement of the various, miscellaneous, assorted, and sundry hand-sanitizing items scattered about my homestead. Note that this does not include other disinfecting items such as Comet, bleach, Clorox wipes, Lysol sprays (although these items may make a guest appearance), or other such cleansers--this is mainly contained to hand sanitizers. I just wanted to document how they appear in every nook and cranny of my abode.

Upon entering the ancestral manse, you'll first see this to your immediate right:

Often, if you are a guest in my home, I will also have an additional spare container of hand sani gel placed on this table that you are faced with, just upon entering. This is a not-so-subtle hint to cleanse your gee-dee hands, but also provides you with a choice: Would you rather wash your hands at the sink, use hand sanitizing wipes, or just use hand sani gel? You decide. I'll at least grant you that. The disinfecting of the hands is otherwise nonnegotiable, unless I'm feeling particularly vulnerable or insecure that day and can't bring myself to ask you to clean your hands. Which is 99% of the time, unless you are acquainted with my OCD. 

Next, only a few steps into the living room, you'll see this, a well-loved container of Germ-X and some baby-friendly wipes on what we call the "lamp table":

Febreeze peeks out behind its stronger and more important siblings. Here we have alcohol-based hand sani for the hardcore germaphobe, plus a more gentle, kid-friendly, earth-friendly, biodegradable benzalkonium-chloride-based antimicrobial wipes. The Germ-X is used liberally by me and the paterfamilias; the Germinator wipes are used more sparingly and on the younger generation, such as when we come home after someone has touched the baby's hands or she has touched a--gasp--restaurant table.

If you take a firm left into the kitchen and take a peek into the undersink cabinets, you will of course be faced with an onslaught of harsh chemicals, but if you merely glance upwards, you'll see this:

This is above the kitchen sink, the sink where we go to wash immediately after coming home; and when we are done washing, we employ a liberal use of this very hand sani. 

To the left of the sink, just hanging out on the stovetop, is a box of Purell wipes. These, I include in my daughter's lunch box when I pack her lunches for preschool.

"Perfect for...Lunch boxes!" Why yes, I think so!

Just next to the kitchen area, in fact where I am sitting at this very second, is the table/my laptop area. To my right you'll find this teency-tincey sani:

A little blurry, but it's a Bath & Body Works "Apple Pie" purse-sized sani. Smells sooooo delicious, and does the job if I decide in the middle of a blog entry that I'm just not sterile enough and I need a burst of chemicals. Hey! Now's as good a time as ever! *hand-sanis*

I also have one of these by my bed.

If you take a stroll down the hall, you'll see my purse, where I have tossed it haphazardly. (Hey, I said I'm a germ freak, not a neat freak.) Inside my purse is the omnipresent bottle of Purell. I have to refill this little guy an awful lot. I use it with alarming regularity.

And should you continue to meander down the hall and need to use the bathroom facilities, this is what you will be faced with, as a guest in our home:

BAM!

"Regular-sized" hand sani provided for size reference. Because we have BIG-ASS HAND SANI in our bathroom. So that you can't miss it. HINT HINT. I also have the following picture taped to the inside of our bathroom door:

Insulting? Perhaps, to those of you who Get It, but you have no idea how many guests and family members we've had to our home who DO. NOT. WASH. their hands after using the bathroom. (From afar, outside the bathroom, you can hear the water run. Or not run, as the case may be.) So we've decided to treat ALL our guests like kindergartners and remind them of the basics of hygiene. Anyway.

Then there's the baby's room. I always wash with soap and water after I change Naomi's diaper, because nothing beats soap and water, but occasionally, I need to finish diapering her or clothing her before I am able to get to a sink. In which case, a gallon dollop of hand sani is nice to have at the ready. So this is in Naomi's room at her changing table:

So that we can X the Germs. 

Next comes the master bedroom and bath.

Here is what you'll find just above my head, on my side of the bed:

Purell for when I'm feeling grody and don't want to get grodiness on my Kindle, and Cetaphil lotion for when my got-damn hands are dried and cracked within an inch of their very lives from overPurelling.

And last but not least, the master bath. Here is what you'll see if you take a wander there:

Or should I say,

Another tub of Sani-Hands. This is the particular tub I usually use when sanitizing my forearms and elbows for when they have rested on the grotesque tables at restaurants.

Also:

Another absolutely *BAM!* GARGANTOR container of hand sani, thanks to Costco or the dollar store. We go though these at a terrifying rate. And finally, next to our GARGANTOR tub of hand sani, you will also find, bafflingly enough, some Hibiclens. You know, in case we plan to perform some home surgery or something. 

And there you have it. All most of the hand sanitizers in my home. The ones I could think of, anyway.

All I have to say is, when bat flu strikes, you'll wish you were a guest in my home.

Monday Musings.

Can you even imagine all the bum-bum germs in a foam party? That shit can't be chlorinated. And I mean, it's soap, but so is the filthy stuff you rinse OFF your hands. Soap doesn't automatically make it clean. Soap doesn't disinfect ALL THOSE DANCING BUM-BUMS.

You think you're having good, soapy fun...

But here's what's really going on:

Hoookay...y'all g'head and enjoy your sudsy sudsy bum-bum germs! 

...I'll sit this one out.

PS: You'll probably have to be a regular, long-time reader 'round these parts to fully appreciate that second photo and all its component bits. snort.

Fun Friendly Phobic Fact Friday!

Next time you are out shopping, please ignore the stinkeye of other, more granola shoppers* and put your child in one of these:

* I once had a brazen elderly gent at Trader Joe's tell me I was doing a great disservice to my gnawing infant 's immune system by protecting her from shopping cart germs. I wanted to tell him, "OK buster, let's see YOU fucking lick this shopping cart handle, you rat bastaaaad."

I mean CUB OD. (PS: Steve Carrell, is that you?)

FACT: Dr. Charles Gerba, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned environmental microbiologist and is also known much to my amusement as Dr. Germ. Here are his thoughts on the matter.

"Those covers made for the seat area of the shopping cart were created for good reason: 'We find more E. coli on shopping carts than on toilet seats,' Dr. Gerba says. 'In addition to germs from food [and grubby grubby hands], children’s dirty bottoms are going in the seat—and the carts are hardly ever cleaned.' " 

Bum-bums galore, I tell you!

He continues--

"The checkout screens where you swipe your credit or ATM card aren’t great, either. In some grocery stores, up to 80% have E. coli on them—likely picked up from people handling leaky meat packages and unwashed produce, then touching the screen. Another germy spot: Your reusable grocery bag. Yes, you’re being environmentally conscious, but bacteria from meat and produce from your last trip are probably still in there. 'Only 3% of people surveyed say they have ever washed their totes, and half use them for carrying other things, like dirty clothes,' Dr. Gerba says. 'That’s like hauling your groceries home in your dirty underwear.'"

Sorry, Bob. Sorry, Larry.

Grocery cart covers serve a purpose! Use yours with pride!
And screw those old crotchety men who try to tell you otherwise!

Naomi's New Friend.

I declined just this once to heed my own advice and let my baby girl enjoy her new best friend.

Hey, maybe this is a step in the less OCD right direction. David P. Strachan would be right proud. Except that Naomi is probably licking off Windex and Clorox, and that's not exactly what he intended. But surely there's some fly vomit in there as well, to boost ye olde immune system.

"Who, me, making out with an adorable chick?"

High School Daze.

I know I've struggled with being a germaphobe for at least the last 20 years, but I'm not quite sure when my OCD took a sharp left and really, really became hardcore.

Like, when did it really became life-alteringly bad? You know, I remember back in high school, I was a pretty damn hardcore germaphobe. I remember being a fierce handwasher, and I remember just as fiercely refusing, to the detriment of my all-important school popularity, to share my hairbrush. But then again, I also remember using the water fountain *shudder*, something I'd never in a million years do nowadays.

Is that the jankiest photo editing you ever done seen? lul.

I do remember noticing and being utterly horrified concerned about the actions of others. I remember telling you guys about how my friend Joy would say she didn't need to wash her hands after using the school bathroom because, inexplicably, "she had already showered that morning." As if showers "stuck."

O_O

I just--I mean--I can't--I--I--

Anyway. That kind of thing drove me nuts. It grossed me out beyond belief. I remember being disgusted when I'd see fellow students walk out after not using that gritty, sandy pink powder soap (remember that shit??)--

--to scrub up after using the bathroom. But my gross-out didn't practically disable me. Whereas nowadays, if I was hanging out with someone who didn't wash, I would either need a full-on Hazmat suit in order to continue our day date/play date, or I would have to bid them adieu for the day and go home and take a rape-shower.

Back then, I would just think, "You are a sick, gross individual, and I will not share your Funyuns at lunch time. Carrying on." And I would. I would carry on. Without dwelling. WITHOUT DWELLING.

And back then, in high school, I had approx. 790 homework assignments per night. It didn't help that I was in Advanced Everything. Advanced Placement English. Honors History. Honors Science. Calculus in 9th grade. Gym Class for Superstars. Just kidding about that last one, I was a fat lazy fuck.

I took home about seven enormous, giant, three-pounds-each textbooks per night, plus my hugely overstuffed binder, plus all manner of extraneous shits. I was also playing it cool by carrying my backpack on one shoulder as opposed to wearing the backpack properly on two shoulders. And FORGET the strap that went around your middle inn order to evenly distribute the weight so that you would not end up a hunchback. First, my middle was far too large in those days for such shenanigans. Second, I mean, come on, fucking DORKY. I mean, shut up.

I have a point somewhere, bear with me.

So...cutting to the chase, I took home with me book after book of homework, and never once did it occur to me to disinfect or Lysol or Clorox off the covers of textbooks that I was using. (1) Because my BFFs Lysol and Clorox wipes hadn't been invented yet, dammit; and (2) because it just didn't goddamn occur to me. Because while I was germ obsessed, I wasn't That OCD yet. This was both good and bad. Bad because I surely brought home myriad horrific high school germs with me and unwittingly shoved them up my nose and got sick, but Good because I wasn't a raging paranoiac yet.

I blog about this now because, the point is, now I AM a raging paranoiac. What am I to do when Maya or Naomi is in school and, every single day of her life, brings home 6 or 8 textbooks plus a PeeChee or Trapper Keeper or two? 

Shall I Clorox off those bitches before I allow her to run some mathematical proofs? Shall I spritz them with Lysol before I allow her to calculate the circumference of whatever the fuck? I just don't know.

I am glad on one hand that my OCD wasn't quite this bad during my high school days, but now it IS this bad. So what am I supposed to do when my kids are in junior high or high school? It's bad enough now that one of my children is in PRE-fucking-SCHOOL. But I can deal with wiping down a lunch box and quarantining a backpack like it's got the bubonic plague. But when it comes to math textbooks and history textbooks, shit, son, am I really going to say, "Hi honey, welcome home, I made you some snickerdoodles, now let's use some medical-grade CaviWipes on your English lit book before we get started on your homework?"

It's s hard. I do, but I don't, want to pass on The Crazy. I do, and I don't. I don't, and I do.

Off-Topic Tuesday.

An off-topic post having nothing to do with bum-bum germs, because I can, and because my kid is really quite cute.

I call this one:

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Next up: A video blog wherein same cute kid talks about why handwashing is important.