How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Germ

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How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Germ

September 1, 2008

…ok, so maybe “love” is a tad strong, but I couldn’t resist going with a Dr. Strangelove title on this one.

Let’s try “accept” instead. There. That’s better.

You see, I grew up in a strict household of cleanliness when I was little. That meant to always wash, always keep everything neat and tidy, and never mess with anyone else’s things when you’re over at their house. Always respect other people’s personal rules and belongings.

Those are a fine set for a little kid to live by most of the time and mom had only the best of intentions, but the problem with me was I always took everything so exact and literal, often to unhealthy extremes. This created a cycle of weird ups and downs throughout my life that I’m only just now beginning to balance out.

Like there was this one period I went though when I was little where I felt like I just HAD to take 2 showers a day. Then later on it got worse, to where even something silly like going #2 in the bathroom was sufficient grounds for yet another bath or another shower.

Eventually it got to the point where I washed my hands so often, I had to get a prescription cream (called Elocon cream or something like that) from the doctor to treat the weird cluster of bumps that formed just underneath my right hand’s middle knuckle from all the hot water hitting it each day.

Then, somehow… slowly, surely, I came out of it and stopped washing so damn often…

…and in realizing the error of my ways… swung in the complete opposite direction.

This time I was not bathing twice a day, but more like once every two or three days. And if I was depressed, maybe a little longer. One time I remember my uncle saying something like “I just don’t get you, Greg. For a guy who’s so organized with everything to let himself go so long without a bath… it just doesn’t make any sense!”

Well, he was right. It didn’t make any sense.

I say this not to gross you out, but to demonstate to all the compulsives out there that yours truly has indeed been there. I know how it feels to be on both ends of the extreme. I have seen the belly of the beast, and have returned triumphant.

It all has to do with your thinking and how you personally perceive what being “clean” and being “dirty” really mean.

This nation has become obsessed with cleanliness to the point of absurdity. Today there seems to be no resting place, no point at which we can feel comfortable in our own skins for more than a few hours after our last shower. This whole concept of “clean” is a moving target, always receding into the distance.

Like most things social, interest in home and body hygiene has waxed and waned through the ages. Early Egyptians played around in pools, ancient Greeks and Romans had their bath houses. Enlightenment Europeans never bathed a day in their lives, believing water spread diseases like the Plague. Literally.

But ever since deodorant and mouthwash entered the American marketplace in the 20th century, standards of cleanliness have steadily racheted up. And now nearly a decade into the 21st century, we are consumed by a full-blown germophobia and personal hygiene mania.

Office supply stores sell germ-resistant highlighters and scissors. Ten years ago, hand-sanitizing gels could be found ONLY in hospitals. Now they’re flying off the shelves of every grocery and drug store. One time I remember going into a Kroger to help my mom look for some food and being greeted at the door by a free box of sanitizing wipes (to use on the shopping cart handle, naturally.) In 2005, more than $67,300,000 (that’s MILLION, buckwheat) in hand sanitizers were sold… that’s a 54% increase over the year before! And it keeps rising every year!

Why the massive panic over invisible threats?

On the surface, it seems like an earnest effort to promote health… but a closer look suggests we feel a deep mistrust of our bodies and profound pessimism about human nature: The backyard is a hotbed of creepy-crawlies, my body is brimming with toxins, and the germs in my kitchen are just waiting for Independence Day…the day to rise up out of their desperate lives of oppression and raid the palace of my immune system!

We scour and scrub in an attempt to allieviate our anxieties and exercise some degree of control over an environment we perceive as hostile – an act of pathetic futility, as I will soon show you.

We wage war against what is by far the largest population of living things on earth – because the weight of all microbes is…

25 times heavier than all other life… COMBINED!

And consider this: without bugs, we wouldn’t even BE here. We wouldn’t draw a single breath!

Just as overprotecting children can keep them from developing social skills, scrutinizing ourselves undermines our immune system, which actually REQUIRES a constant flow of germs to keep it in good shape. What’s more is overuse of cleaning products exposes us to toxic chemicals often more dangerous than the germs we’re supposed to be protecting ourselves from. And then of course there’s the so-called “superbugs” – germs that have developed a resistance to the drugs found in cleaning products.

“They’re lying in wait for you at the ATM machine and on your computer keyboard at work. Secretly, they attach themselves to your hands when you push a shopping cart at the store. The little pests will even attach themselves to your children’s hands when they romp on playground equipment.”

Almost sounds convincingly icky, doesn’t it? Well, what you just read is the exact text of a promo piece sent to the press by a maker of hand-sanitizing gels called “99 Places Where You Need to Watch Out For Germs.”

From a marketing point of view (keep in mind here, I am a copywriter) that’s a pretty good title and a halfway decent intro. But you gotta remember WHY they’re sending it out; to get press… to get attention for their product in hopes they’ll get reported on and (they hope) sell more blue goop.

And that’s ALL it is; selling. Nothing more. Just someone else’s way of trying to convince you that life on it’s own is not safe enough, not good enough, or somehow otherwise flawed… and therefore you need their product to make yourself whole again.

Don’t be taken in by all the fear-mongering. Your body contains an estimated 100 TRILLION cells… and only 10 measily percent of those one-hundred trillion actually belong to YOU! The rest? Yup, GERMS. All germs. Most of which help you survive and live a normal life.

In fact, if you were 100% germ-free this very moment – you’d be dead in 2 weeks. That’s it. No more life for you. All because you need germs as much as they need you.

Germs help us digest our food, keep our immune system in shape, cure diseases, and some even manufacture vitamins for us. Hell, even the very oxygen we BREATHE is a byproduct of blue-green algae (that’s actual SCUM in case you didn’t know) that evolved millions of years ago.

Ok, ok… so it’s good to become more “at one” with germs and nature in general. But don’t take it too far like I did. You still need to bathe, still need to wash the dirt off our hands, and for chrissakes don’t suck on your fingers after you cut open a chicken.

You need to learn, as I did, to… just… let go. Slowly at first, with little things.

Let that kitchen counter get a little crummy, a little greasy. Just a bit. Let that coffee table get a little dusty… until it bothers you. Let it push you a little longer. Do several things in a row without washing your hands… THEN seek sweet relief. THEN finally dust the furniture.

Eventually you’ll notice that things don’t seem to bother you as much as they once did; the world did not end when you let the house slide a little. In fact, maybe it got a little messier… a little more organic… more natural… you know, more like a HOME and a little less like a museum. (Thank you, Courtney & Christine, for helping me realize that.)

And you know what? Stop using all the hand-sanitizers and especially anti-bacterial soap, except for the most demanding of situations.

Why? Well, take a look at the photos below and you’ll see what took me so long to realize for myself… keeping yourself clean doesn’t have to be a “medical thing” – no, plain old water does a shockingly good job all by itself!

Here is the bacteria imprint left by a “normal” unwashed hand that’s just been doing some random work around the house. No big deal, just a hand. Maybe even YOUR hand right now:

Ewww. Gross.

Ok, now let’s look at the SAME HAND, this time after washing for 30 seconds with WATER ONLY:

Wow. Surprisingly better, don’t you think? I thought so. I had no idea water alone could get rid of most of the nasty on our skin. Amazing.

Now look at this one, after 30 seconds of PLAIN, ORDINARY SOAP:

Note that wasn’t “anti-bacterial” soap… just plain soap. You know, like a bar of Zest or Irish Spring, for example. With soap you get almost everything!

And if you extend the wash time to a full minute, here’s what you get, again using plain soap:

Practically everything. So do you see? You DON’T need anti-bacterial soap. In fact most of the time you don’t need anti-bacterial ANYTHING at all! It’s all a big bluff, a big show to sell more products to more people.

It’s simple salesmanship, really… if you’re just selling “soap” there’s only so far you can take your pitch. Maybe it smells nice. Maybe it feels good or cleans better.

Ah, but anti-bacterial soap? Clean isn’t enough anymore. Merely “washing away” germs down the drain will no longer suffice. No, now we need to “kill” all the bad germs living on our hands and lurking in our crevases. Now our pitch can take on a whole new tone altogether.

Now our pitch can offer up the lofty concepts of “protection against disease” or better yet… the idea of “healthier, happier children.”

In the end, balance is the key. Don’t do stupid things like rubbing your open wounds into raw chicken breast, but also don’t walk through life in saran wrap and tin foil, protecting yourself unnecessarily against an unseen force that will get you (and in reality has already gotten you) anyway.

Like it or not, we’re every bit a part of this world as germs are. And when we’re gone, we’re worm food anyway. Better make peace with the lil buggers now before it’s too late.

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