Not for the Squeamish

You've been warned.
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I am frustrated with men who tell me, "I didn't pee on my hands, why wash them?" I wash my hands each and every time I use the restroom and let me tell you one reason why.

This division of my company has approximately 160 employees. I work upstairs where slightly more than half the people work. Let's say 100 people. The division is pretty evenly mixed between males to females, so let's say 50 are male.

Each day, a majority of the males have to use the men's restroom at least once and some men multiple times. That means, each day, approximately 45 men are using the urinals in the upstairs men's restroom.

Most men hold their penises with at least one hand while using a urinal and nearly all touch their penises for "the shake" when they are finished peeing.

That means that 45 men have touched their penises and, at a minimum, have then touched the flushing mechanism on the urinal and/or the door to exit the men's bathroom.

You know where your penis has been, how clean it is, and what sort of problems or diseases you have. But you are, each time you use this restroom and these urinals, touching items handled by 44 other men who have similarly touched their penises. Do you know where each and every one of these men has been? How clean they keep their penises? What diseases and other afflictions they have on their genitals?

You touched at least one surface within the restroom that 44 other men touched with their unclean hands, and you chose to leave the restroom without washing yours. On the way back to your desk and at your desk, you touch:
- the flushing mechanism and/or the door handle to the men's room
- the handles of every public door between you and your desk
- your chair
- your keyboard
- your phone (including possibly your cell phone)
- your laptop
- writing implements
- pads of paper, notes, papers that will then be forwarded to other people
- staplers, tape dispensers, etc.

Also, along the way back to your desk, did you:
- pick up that print job from the public printer? Change or add paper when you saw it was out? Touch printout of the person who was in front of you?
- shake anyone's hand?
- attend a meeting? (there's another door, another chair, more hands shaken)
- did you stop and get coffee? (coffee handle, the cups, the cream, the sugar, the little straws used to stir)
- did you use the soda machine? (buttons, change area, receiving area)
- touch the sandwiches in the lunch room before finding the one you want to eat? The plates or cups?

Whatever you might have picked up from one of those 44 other men has now been spread to multiple surfaces that other people, including women who have never even visited the men's restroom, may now touch and pick up.

It is true that this happens every day and that most people's immune systems are strong enough to fight off the small amount that has spread over all of these surfaces and areas. But do you want to take that chance? And what if that one person has something more virulent? What if he has open sores (on his hands or on his penis)?

Now, tell me again that "I didn't pee on my hands, why wash them?"

I admit that washing your hands is no panacea. But it does seriously reduce what you can catch and what you can pass on. It only takes a few moments. Please stop and wash.