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2000-03-28 - 15:19:18
My second job when I came back to Chicago from college was working in a book bindery. For me it was a dream job. Sorta artsy, working with my hands, doing precision stuff, and BOOKS! Well, I became disillusioned quickly enough once I figured out that we really were'nt doing serious bookbinding. Yeah, most of what we did was by hand, but only because the shop didn't have the machinery for factory style production. But I learned a lot about working. I learned a lot about handling paper, and glue, and working with machinery.
When you're working with books, and paper, you really need to keep your hands clean. Surprisingly, paper, especially the paper that we used for endsheets, really shows up dirty finger smudges. You have to try to erase them with an eraser, and if you can't, you have to take the book apart, and re-do it.
So basically I washed my hands about 10 times a day at work. For almost 3 years.
I don't remember if I've always been a hand washer, but I've noticed since then that I am more concious of it.
About eleven years ago, I started a job where I had to work outside all day working on bus stop benches. Fixing them, moving them, putting them up, taking them down. Outside all day, all year round. Well, I quickly learned that it was a lost cause trying to keep my hands clean. Eventually, I got used to having dirty hands all day. Dirty, grimy, dirt-under-the-fingernails, kinda dirty. With callouses, cuts and dings, broken fingernails and slimy things. Imagine my horror as I reach under the bench to pick it up and accidently grabbed a rotten piece of fried chicken swarming with maggots. Ewwwwwww!
Sometimes, if I went to a resturant for lunch, I could go in the bathroom and wash my hands before I ate. But that was a luxury. Usually, I'd just eat my lunch with dirty hands. After a while, I started thinking all that wash-your-hands-before-eating stuff was pretty tight-sphinctered. But under dire conditions, I'd spray my hands down with marker remover solvent and wipe 'em off with a dry rag. Great for my liver, eh?
Anyway, I hope I don't have that OCD hand washing thing. I mean, these days I work in an office, so my hands don't get all that dirty.
Let's see, I think I'm pretty normal:
I wash my hands after pooping. Better safe than sorry, right? That's once a day (if I'm lucky!)
(1)
I usually wash my hands after peeing, especially if I screw up and pee all over my hands. Don't you just hate that? Three or four times a day, unless I'm drinking.
(5)
I wash before meals, usually. We'll say two, 'cause I'm still clean from the shower in the morning for breakfast.
(7)
After work. That's a habit from the bench job. One more.
(8)
In the shower in the morning, but that's incidental, as well as when I wash dishes. These don't count.
Then we'll add the occasional emergency hand washing for things like, paper cuts, suddenly realizing you picked up something very dirty, photocopier/laser printer toner, dust from digging around behind desks for computer cables, etc. So, we'll say, conservatively, another three.
(11)
Oh yeah, can't forget the 9:23am hand wash. And the 10:13am hand wash, or the 11:38am, the 1:04pm, the 2:16pm and the 3:57pm hand washes.
(17)
Oh gee, they're really starting to add up.
Well, I better end this entry. I gotta go wash my hands.
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So, how do you like them apples?