I am not a germaphobe.
Sure I’ve had problems in the past when it comes to being hyper-sensitive to how dirty the world is but I’m pretty much over it. Germs are a part of everyday life and doing anything short of wearing a full biohazard suit all the time is pointless and only adds to my frustration. I have grown as a person and my unwarranted fears have been driven into a dark corner in my mind never to be heard from again. Of course the universe likes to make my life miserable and once in a while I’m forced to dick-slap my personal demons.
As a child it was beaten hourly with a pork shoulder and during those disciplinary sessions was forced to repeat “always cover your mouth when you sneeze” until either my vocal chords gave out or the pork was tender. I dutifully followed this command since it was the only thing my parents told me that didn’t seem completely full of shit. Eventually I started working in fast food service where it became inconvenient to sneeze into my hands since they would become contaminated which would then poison the food which is supposedly a bad thing I guess. Being the master of deductive reasoning that I was I figured it would be better to sneeze or cough into my shoulder so neither my hands nor the air in front of me would be filled with millions of little germs having anal sex(I never really paid attention in biology). Now I’m normally not the type of person who lives his life based on helping others but in this case I feel like my consideration for other people would force everyone to do the same making the world a much better place for myself. Think of it as selfish altruism.
Now of course as a counterpoint to my enlightened intellect I’m prone to occasional moments of phenomenal stupidity. Being as bright as I am I often forget that most people are not all there and haven’t figured out germ theory yet. One would think that with all we know about viruses people would have the sense or courtesy to do as much as possible not to spread their own nastiness to other people. Thankfully last week the universe cockpunched me back into reality.
Now after all of that excessive preamble most of you have already figured out where I’m going with this however for those who are like the person I’m about to describe I’ll spell it all out. I was having an unusually relatively pleasant day at the office. I had just stepped onto any empty elevator and pressed the button for my floor. A few more primates in suits also entered and in turn selected the floor which was correct for them. With everybody on the elevator having fulfilled their responsibility the doors began to close. One or two stragglers came in at the last minute delaying our departure but I was in a decent mood and chose not to let that bother me. The doors closed and our journey was underway. One of the people who rushed into the elevator at the last second seemed to have a cold and was wiping their nose with an over-saturated tissue. I paid no mind as the ”lady” wasn’t touching anyone or coughing into the air.
As the first group of passengers debarked from the elevator the ditch pig lady realised that the button for her floor wasn’t pressed yet so she quickly reached her snot tissue over and pressed the button with her fingers between the tissue and button. Just to make this crystal fucking clear to everyone reading this I’ll say it again; she pressed the elevator button with the very tissue that was being used no more than two seconds earlier to sop up the excess snot from her dripping snout!
I couldn’t believe what I saw! I blacked out for a few seconds and when I came to the ditch pig had exited the elevator leaving only an invisible film of mucus on a helpless elevator button. I didn’t even get a chance to reprimand her or even shout out a few choice adjectives(cunt is an adjective right?). I walked from the elevator in disbelief back to my desk and covered my arms, face and neck with Purell; I knew I didn’t touch anything but even being witness to such acts makes me anxious and my skin needs cleansing before my mind can even think of recovery.
Once I felt safe within my own skin again I started wondering what would possess a person to think that spreading your fluids all around town is acceptable behaviour? Were you using the tissue to make sure that other people’s elevator mucus didn’t touch yours? Did you not have a free digit that wasn’t covered in snot to press the button with? Maybe the lady just panicked and didn’t think about what she was doing. In my mind none of these explanations can justify those actions.
So now because of one disgusting sub-human I can never feel at peace in an elevator again. I will only touch the button with a key or my foot, never on bare skin. If I do happen to touch anything I immediately go into the bathroom and scrub the poison from my hands. Because of one inconsiderate cow my quality of life has been destroyed. When the revolution comes she and her ilk will be the first against the wall.
This is what it’s like to be me.
RottingKittens 