THERE’S SO MUCH TO LEARN AS A NEW GERMOPHOBE
I’ve always viewed germs as invisible little things I paid no attention to.
I’m the guy that eats food that fell on the floor for seven seconds, and sometimes for 17. Only days ago, I was happily shaking hands, two-cheek kissing and embracing everyone I met.
But overnight I’ve become a nervous germophobe, like much of our city and the world, as life changes around us at the speed of light.
With sports events, festivals and Broadway plays suspended, travelling Quebecers told to self-quarantine and the PM and his wife in self-isolation, we are all shell-shocked.
But we are also becoming germ freaks — asking ourselves 100 tiny health questions.
Step on a crowded bus and your inner germophobe panics, thinking: should you touch the poles, or seats — or just stand with your arms three feet out, while 70 other passengers try to do the same?
Should you push elevator buttons with your toe and credit card machines with a car key? Pump gas with a winter glove then throw it away, in case it’s contaminated?
Or just wear disposable gloves and change them at every gas station and elevator?
Perhaps you should withdraw your life savings from the bank so you won’t need ATM machines to get cash for several months. But how much longer will anyone be handling germ-covered bills once The Virus really strikes?
Yesterday’s paranoia is today’s new normal.
Meanwhile everyone is scrubbing their hands like surgeons, to their own personalized 20second song, whether it’s Happy Birthday sung twice, or You Are My Sunshine or Stayin’ Alive — whose 24-second chorus also works for CPR.
For me, the problem hasn’t been the 20 seconds. It’s that our bathroom takes 45 seconds for water to get hot — and by then 20 seconds seems like an eternity.
So it was a relief to read last Thursday that cold water is just as effective as hot. There’s so much to learn as a new germophobe.
It’s easy to get paranoid. After playing tennis, I used the courtside hand sanitizer machine — but then inside the locker room I wondered if there were germs on the locker handle I’d just opened.
I cleaned up that problem by taking a shower, but right afterward a player handed me a $20 bill — which possibly got new germs on my hands. So leaving the locker room I hand-sanitized again.
Then the tennis club waiter handed me a beer — and how many times a day can you clean your hands, or sing Happy Birthday?
Greeting people has also become a dilemma. Handshaking is obviously history for most people, unless you both agree to shake-then-purell.
But how about an air kiss if you’re six feet apart and neither person breathes out? It won’t be long before we’re all bowing to each other.
Many people are still bumping fists, while double bumping them has replaced the two-cheek kiss. But what if you fist bump someone, then lean your chin on your germ-infested fist like The Thinker — and absent-mindedly touch your mouth?
Health experts keep telling us: DON’T TOUCH YOUR FACE! But I’m always touching mine to scratch an itch, adjust my glasses, wipe my brow or just think, with my fingers distractedly fingering my jaw.
The average person touches their face at least 16 times an hour, which is 256 times a day when awake, let alone when we’re sleeping. I may just have to handcuff my wrists to my belt.
“Social distancing” is the new phrase we’re all quickly learning, as we’re advised to stay away from crowds and humans in general.
Quebec has closed schools, banned gatherings of over 250 people and told returning travellers to self-quarantine for 14 days. So a one-week vacation will now cost you three weeks of time.
Meanwhile, people are emptying store shelves like the day before the apocalypse, preparing to hole up at home for weeks. The only real winners here will be Netflix and Amazon, as online life continues to replace real life.
Canadian and Quebec health officials are doing their best to contain this still mysterious virus. But we could conceivably spend months in social isolation with little to distract us.
That could be hard on many people, as loneliness and isolation are huge problems already.
Whatever happens and however life changes, let’s all remember that in our new germophobic need to avoid touching people, we can’t lose the human touch — or create classes of untouchables.
That’s why Mayor Valerie Plante’s Thursday visit to Chinatown, where business has plummeted, was a gracious gesture of support.
So show compassion and stay in touch with people, even if you don’t touch them. There’s no truth to the rumour that the virus can be transmitted over the phone.
Please quarantine this column for 14 days after reading it. And definitely don’t touch my picture.