Washing your hands in the restroom

As a matter of common etiquette, most people wash their hands after using the restroom (or at least rinse them off, hopefully in the sink). i mean, you're going to be out and about, touching a hell of a lot of things others are going to also have to handle. It's a matter of cleanliness, sanitation and hygene toward others and society in general. Do you really want to handle money, touch doorknobs or shake hands with a hand that has just been near (if not on) someone else's genitalia? Of course not! That's nasty!

My argument is this: Washing your hands before using the restroom makes just as much sense, if not more. Your crotch is a veritable heaven for bacteria and can give easy access to all manners of delicate tissues, organs and mucus membranes. Washing your hands before using the restroom minimizes the chance of spreading something your hands have picked up onto your sensitive private parts.

i work in basically a glorified machine shop. Most of the mills, lathes and other instruments of destruction around here are older than i am. This place is dirty. The machines are dirty. There's no telling what you might get all over your hands out there. Maybe it's cosmoline, perhaps oil or STP all mixed with 30 years of grunge. i sure as shit don't want to touch my penis, knowing that any of that nast is all over my hands. i wash my hands before i use the restroom at work. After thinking about it for a while, i realized this was a good idea, no matter where i am.

So please, out of respect for yourself, wash your hands before you use the restroom.

Our intrepid double-naught spy, Mr. Bodine, recently returned from an undercover assignment investigating reported plans of world domination at the Miss Manners Biological Warfare Development Center, has recovered some fairly damning G2. Consistent with Judith Martin's megalomaniacal and insidious, "wheels within wheels" modus operandi, she has once again given us just enough rope with which to hang ourselves.

Fortunately, my own operative ( the perpetually unflappable Number 007 Ox ), has returned with the prophylactic completion that will significantly reduce (or rather, transform) our degree of exposure.
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Mr. Bodine is hot on the trail of the solution. His extension of the basic process is correct, as far as it goes, yet incomplete. He correctly notes the unwanted juxtapostion of nasty bacteria and the delicate mucous membranes of our beloved genitalia. However, how are we to deal with the dreaded splashback? The solution is at once simple, sublime and delightful. The post-urination handwashing should be immediately followed with a genitalia washing and then yet another handwashing. The cleanliness of both hands and genitalia is thereby insured.

The more paranoid of my brethren in the intelligence community feel that by implementing this proposal, we could be dancing exactly according to plan of the master puppeteer and that Ms. Martin is planning on cornering the market on bidets. Fortunately, I have acted preemptively to preclude any such action by launching bidetsforadollar.com.

As a stopgap measure, until there is a bidet in every restroom, we must all fastidiously engage in manual genitalia cleansing that is to be performed immediately after urination. It is vital that this cleansing be vigorous and thorough. Detailed instructions may be viewed at the Genital Cleansing Faq.

Please be prepared for the initial odd reactions to your adherence to this procedure. Uninformed people may appear amused, shocked and even frightened by your behavior. You must attempt to educate those that do not understand. Within twenty four hours, an educational pamphlet will be available from Jack Chick at www.chick.com. Stock up and distribute with extreme prejudice.

In closing, I must commend the tenacity,ingenuity and self-sacrifice of Mr Bodine. While his implicit statement regarding his position on oral sex has most likely hampered him in the dating pool, we will all live better, safer, cleaner lives for it.

Washing your hands after relieving yourself in the men's restroom is quite pointless, for a reason not many think of.

Back in high school biology, one of our projects was to "swab" five random spots around the school building and transfer the results into specially-treated pitri dishes to see what would grow.

I had a working theory at the time that the boys' restrooms in the school were the nastiest places on Earth, so I conducted an experiment of my own. I had only five dishes to work with, and for various reasons, it was best to swab each dish with only a single sample. So I chose two spots in a classroom I knew was touched often by many hands. I figured it would be gross and would make a good "control group".

The other three samples were taken from three surfaces everyone touches in a restroom if they wash their hands: the faucets, the towel dispenser handle, and the door handle (only for bathrooms where there's a door, and where it's pulled open from inside). Sure, you touch the door handle whether you wash your hands or not (keep this in mind). We let the bacteria samples grow for a week, then looked at the results.

Yuck.

Oddly enough, the two control group samples were pretty dull; minimal growth, and as bacteria goes, this stuff didn't look too offensive. Sure, it all looks offensive when you know what it is, but it was very plain. Just one color, kind of powdery. The three bathroom samples were disgusting. Lots of colors. Lots of spots. Much more growth.

By far the most disgusting of the surfaces was the door handle. This demonstrated an interesting couple of points, set below in a handy reference for your friends, about washing your hands in a public restroom:

• Unless you've actually gotten your own bodily fluids and excretions on your hands, there's not really much reason to wash your hands anyway. Yes, your genitals are home to harmless bacteria (harmless to your genitals, anyway), but your minimal contact with them will not cause any harm.
• Every surface involved in trying to clean your hands is far dirtier than your hands are. The door handle has seen every person's hand who's used the bathroom. The towel dispenser (or air dryer) has been touched by every person who's touched the faucets. The faucets have been touched by every hand deemed worthy of washing, before they've been washed.

If you're worried about the cleanliness of your hands, they'll come out cleaner if you don't wash them in a public facility.