The Bathroom

I just saw something weird in the bathroom. (Please hold off on the silly jokes, thankyouverymuch.)

I think we’ve all seen the “touchless sinks”—where you just hold your hand in front of the sink, and the sensors turn it on automatically. I was at an office this afternoon that had touchless soap dispensers; a natural progression, one would think. If you’re already making touchless sinks, so that people don’t have to touch that grubby thing with their clean hands, then a touchless soap dispenser just makes sense.

But here’s the weird thing: The sink, in this particular bathroom, wasn’t touchless. So you can use the soap dispenser, and not have to worry about getting infected with someone else’s germs, but at some point you’re going to have to turn on the water, too, and then it’s all over.

Not that I really care that much about germs anyway. We care too much about germs in North America, and it’s going to come back to haunt us, when the germs get too powerful for the germ-killing agents we’re using. That’s why I advocate licking sinks in public bathrooms, to try and build up your immune system. Gather up as many germs as you can, I say, and let your body learn to fight them off.

Try it. And then let me know how it works out for you, because I’m sure as heck not going to do it. (When you’re telling me about your experience, you might need to get someone else to type up the email for you, if they don’t allow keyboards in the germ-proof bubble where you’ll be forced to live out your few remaining days.)