Notes from the Isolation Ward, Day 11

Keeping Sanitized (part 2)

My hands have never been so clean. I may even have washed the top layer of skin cells off. If cleanliness is next to godliness, I have the holiest hands around.

I have always been rather cavalier about hand-washing. I grew up on a farm with a limited water supply. And an outhouse. And a barn filled with cattle, and a hog barn with hogs and a hen house with (you guessed it) hens. Lots of opportunities to get my hands  dirty. I mean, filthy dirty! And whenever we ate lunch or a meal in the field (especially during harvest), we’d just wipe our dirty, oftentimes greasy, hands on our equally dirty, sometimes greasy, pants, or on the grass or on the stubble, and then sit down and tuck into whatever food Mom had cooked.

I reasoned all that exposure to dirt and ick gave me a super-charged immune system.

Perhaps my immune system is not quite up to the COVID-19 challenge. Perhaps it’s time to change a habit of a lifetime, because I don’t really want to find out if it is. Or is not.

Now, each time I head for the soap and water, I recall part of a children’s story (title long forgotten) I read a very long time ago. It was about a naughty boy (boys always naughty, for some inexplicable reason) who was turned into a cat (don’t ask why, that’s just the way the story was written). He was adopted by an alley cat who taught him all sorts of lessons, but the only one I remember was:

“When in doubt, wash!”

Words to live by these days, it would seem.

When should you wash your hands? Here are some tips from the experts about when to wash/disinfect/sanitize, especially after shopping:

1. Sanitize the cart handle (don’t bother with the rest of the cart).
2. Sanitize your hands after selecting and paying, and before you open the car/truck door.
3. Wash your hands as soon as you get in the door (before carrying your groceries or other shopping anywhere)
4. Wash your hands after putting groceries, etc. away.
5. Wash your hands after preparing food.
6. Wash your hands before eating.
7. Wash your hands after going to the bathroom.

Or, as the cat said, “When in doubt, wash!”

I assume the boy in the story eventually learned his lesson and resumed his human form.

(P.S. Somehow I missed this one when writing my post “Step Right Up Folks! Getcher Snake Oil Here.” People actually believe this stuff?!)

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