 Since some men consider public bathrooms hygienic enough - and enough of a turn-on
- to solicit and have sex in, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that
one-third of guys don't wash up after doing
their, uh, business. At least that's the most recent statistic reported by
bathroom spies, men and women who have managed to take their propensity for
peeping and turn it into a career of sorts.
I read this hand washing statistic in a newspaper I picked up at the airport. I
immediately put down the paper and retrieved my hand sanitizer from my purse
and slathered it up to my elbows. Yeesh, who knows whose hands that paper had
been in?
The peepers went on to say that only 12% of women don't wash up in public bathrooms.
Which, of course, got me thinking about why the male/female difference in basic
kindergarten hygiene. Here are my best hypotheses:
-
Deep down inside... okay, not so deep and not so far
inside... men are just little boys, and little boys like being filthy. I remember
one day when my brother was about six he came home covered from head to toe in
mud so thick, he'd have had to pay hundreds of dollars at a fancy spa in Sedona
for that kind of treatment. Even his eyelashes were caked with the stuff. When asked
how he got so dirty, little brother responded, "I don't see any dirt." Dirt
didn't bother him, but cooties, well, those he'd wash off immediately.
-
Which leads me to hypothesis number two: Men don't
see dirt, just ask any woman who lives with a guy who traipses across the
carpet, leaving mud and lawn clippings in his wake. But before you ask her, let
her turn off the vacuum cleaner so she can hear you. If guys can't see actual
dirt, how are they supposed to care about the invisible dirt and germs that
scientists "claim" live in public bathrooms, not to mention, in their pants?
-
Speaking of things living in guys' pants, if there
are germs in there, they're bigger, stronger, and faster than the germs living
in anyone else's pants! [Insert manly grunt here] These macho germs are vital
to keeping the equipment working. I don't know how... it's a guy thing.
- Women only wash their hands
because they primp when they go into the bathroom and as long as they're in
front of a sink applying lipstick, combing their hair, and adjusting their
tiaras, they might as well run a little water across their hands. Because who
knows who is watching.
Perhaps as disheartening as the large number of men who shake the snake, bypass
the sink, and then go out and shake hands with the co-pilot or high five the
guy dispensing the beer at the football stadium, is that according to a recent
survey, 92% of us say we wash up after going to the bathroom. So men are not
only dirtier, they're bigger liars. Which again, is something to take pride in.
If you're going to do something, do it bigger.
Because hand washing is vital for public health (why else do you think
they have
all those "Employees MUST wash before returning to work" signs in
restaurants
everywhere, guys?), rather than wringing our hands, we need to find
ways to get
men to clean themselves up. Every woman knows you have to wash your
hands as
long as it takes to sing a verse of "Happy Birthday" to really get
clean
(thanks Oprah!), but this kind of thing won't work for the men. Perhaps
whistling "I've Got Friends in Low Places" might do the trick, but I
doubt it.
Personally, I think the only way to get guys to wash up in public
bathrooms is
to disguise the faucet as some kind of power tool with all kinds of
flashing lights and zippy noises. Make it complicated to operate
and don't include instructions. Guys will flock to hand washing like
women to a
nice mud bath at a fancy spa in Sedona.
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