The Sky is Falling

It is difficult to sort through the welter of information that is drifting around the cyberverse these days, especially if one is seeking to know the Truth.
There was a report of a study the other day that purported to make some useful conclusions about the personal hygiene of our fellow Americans.
Although 92% of the people polled said that they always washed their hands after using the bathroom, The Soap and Detergent Association reports that a 2005 study it commissioned shows that only 83% of people washed their hands after using a public restroom.
How is the discerning reader to make any sense of this type of sloppy research and reporting. In the first case the question is about all bathroom usage. One can assume that the respondants were thinking about the primary site of bathroom use - the home. In the second case, the observation is specifically about public bathroom usage. Cripes, at least a third of the public facilities in the USA do not have fully functional sinks or towel dispensors. And for guys, if there is any sort of a line, well....

If you asked me if I always washed my hands after using the rest room, I would say yes 100% of the time. Yet, I have noticed that a lot of my fellow males skip this importance phase of the rest room visit. This has created a certain amount of anguish for me.
What is the point of me gallantly washing the germs off my hands if I am going to have to open the door using the door handle that is clearly infested and probably infected with the teeming bacteria of the non-handwashers?
People look at you like you are a wierdo if you just stand around in the men's room waiting for someone else to open the door. Until someone invents the self sanitizing door handle I shall be forced to use the paper towel to open the door.

Some of my friends - especially the dog owners* - think I am a bit too obsessive about germs. But, once the bird flu gets to be a pandemic, the non handwashers will be sneezing their eyeballs into the sink; clean people like me will be the survivors.

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*If you want and education, google this phrase: "Dogs like to eat and roll in feces"