There isn't enough hand sanitizer in the world!

My name is Sandi and I'm a germaphobe.  Technically, I'm a mysophobe but we're all friends here, right?  I can use regular-people words.  Yes, I turn on faucets with paper towels, flush public toilets with my foot, don't allow shoes in my house and stock my home with hand sanitizer by the gallon. I never put my purse on the floor and I throw up in my mouth a little every time someone blows their nose in a restaurant.  Have you heard about Erin Carr Jordan in Tucson and what she found in the McDonald's playlands?  If not, Google it.  You'll be even more disgusted than you're currently thinking.  My husband prohibited me from seeing the movie Contagion citing that becoming a recluse at this stage of my life was not an option and he knew the movie would drive me to it.  If left to my own devices, I'd live in a bubble.  I smile just thinking about it.  No contact with anyone or anything....ah.... Hey, a girl can dream!  It's a wonder I have kids. 

Johnny Knoxville and Steve O, as we have taken to calling our boys, (it's less offensive to people than Satan and Lucifer, as we were previously calling them), have put my phobia to the test.  They sneeze, I have to wipe their butts and noses, they throw up on occasion and cough.  They touch stuff and put stuff in their mouths.  All the time. Weird stuff.  Gross stuff.  Stuff I can't always identify.  As a result my hands are constantly cracked and bleeding from all the washing I do.  I carry large bottles of hand sanitizer with me at all times.  (Let me tell you, it burns like hell when it gets in the cracks of your dried out knuckles!) But, Steve and Johnny have worn me down a little over the last two years.  I don't gag as much when I have to pick big boogers out of their noses, and their coughs and sneezes don't make me run to the decontamination shower anymore.  But these new rules only apply to them - the germs of MY babies. 

Little Johnny Knoxville took it to a new level the other day.  I may never recover. My friend and I took our cumulative three children to the park.  That, in and of itself, is a challenge for me.  All those snotty, germy kids touching the slides and monkey bars.  Ugh!  And you know no one ever comes along to wipe that stuff down with antibacterial wipes.  I'm shuddering just thinking of it.  But, ya gotta do it; and I do, begrudgingly.  So the little petri dishes were having a hell of a time sliding, swinging, hanging, climbing, etc.  I  stood nearby chatting with my friend all the while in my head I am thinking of all the diseases we could be contracting.  Ebola, MRSA, VRSA, necrotizing fasciitis, bird flu, swine flu, H1N1, lice, coxsackievirus, scabies, ringworm, conjunctivitis... and the list goes on.  Really, I could go on for pages and I don't even have to look them up on the internet.  

Anyway, Steve O announces that he has to go potty.  The disease list in my head continues to roll like the credits at the end of a movie. My friend's little girl is being potty trained so she has to go, too.  We drag the three little angels (yes, that was sarcasm) to the public restroom.  Friend goes in the handicap stall with her little girl.  I place Johnny Knoxville directly outside the stall into which Steve O goes.  I tell Johnny to keep his hands at his sides and not touch ANYTHING.  Johnny is 2.  You know where this is going.  I turn to Steve O and help him up onto the toilet, all the while holding the stall door open with my foot and yelling at Johnny K. to stand still and not touch.  Steve O makes a move to hold onto the toilet; in a panic I turn to yell at Steve not to touch.  Johnny makes his move.  He's gone.  He runs into the handicap stall to check out his little friend and make sure "everything's coming out okay."  

Next thing I hear is my friend in the next stall yelling, "Oh My God.  Put that down.  Put that down."  I throw up in my mouth.  I know it's Johnny and it's not good.  I rush Steve O along and start frantically yelling, "Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. What is it?"  Friend states, "Just get the hand sanitizer."  Now I know it's really bad.  My friend is not a mysophobe.  She can handle this stuff with grace and a smile.  At this particular moment, however, she is not graceful nor smiling. I feel like I'm having a heart attack.  The room starts to spin.  It gets worse.  The faucet in the restroom does not work so there will be no soap and water hand-washing; not that that would have been enough, but every good mysophobe knows you start there and then end with a good coating of Purell.  I keep asking what it was but my friend is hesitating to respond.  Suddenly I just knew.  I feel the blood rush to my feet and start to get a little woozy.  

"Oh no," I say. She nods yes and then... the words I will never forget... "Yes, it was a used tampon." 

 

An incredible wave of nausea overcomes me and I start to pass out.  But, I realize that if I were to pass out I would wind up on the floor of this public restroom.  The very restroom where some moronic woman can't figure out to place her "waste" in the little trash can on the stall wall specifically marked for such uses.  What kind of woman can this be?  What is wrong with her?  Yes, yes, what IS wrong with her?  Does she have AIDS, gonorrhea, chlamydia?  Are we all going to die a slow and painful death related to some disease she has now shared with Johnny Knoxville???  

My friend douses Johnny K. in hand sanitizer, but in my mind I knew it wasn't enough.  What kind of sanitizer did she have?  Was it a generic?  Did it kill 99.9% of germs on contact or only 99.8%?  I doused him again.  In my mind, however, I know it will never be enough.  I washed him no less than 200 times that day.  

Since that day, I have been on-line searching body bubbles.  (Just so you know, you better be careful when you search that.  It's amazing that they can link porn to just about any search words.) Sadly, I'll never look at little Johnny Knoxville the same ever again.  

I can't believe my life...