The Arsenal

I'm a functioning germophobe, which means that I retain (relatively speaking) an element of control over my phobia that allows me to participate in daily life. This is due mostly to what I refer to as my Arsenal.
The Arsenal is a series of products, weapons of mass bacterial and viral destruction, that I use on a daily basis. The Arsenal provides prevenative, emergency, and pallative treatment against any and all daily exposures. The Arsenal also includes rituals that minimize collateral damage.
In a nutshell, this is the main squeeze, the blood and guts, of The Arsensal:

1. Bath and Body Works Pocket Instant Hand Sanitizer Gel in Japanese Cherry Blossom scent. At any given time I have five of these bottles placed strategically in the most frequented areas of my life: One in my brown pea coat and one in my black pea coat; one in my purple going-out clutch; one in my Jeep's glove compartment; and one on my desk. Picture Superman laying naked on a heap of Kryptonite. Yeah, that's me without my Japanes Cherry Blossom Hand Sanitizers. 5 for $5, baby.

2. Clorox Wipes. This is an excellent cleaning tool for the more nefarious germs out there, namely Kitchen Germs and Bathroom Germs. There is a bottle next to botht the kitchen and bathroom sink, both of which get a wipe-down at least once daily.

3. Lysol anti-bacterial spray. Watch out, Envrionment: I have aerosol and I'll use it till it counts as huffing. KIDDING! But seriously, my kitchen gets doused in this stuff each and every time someone cooks something even remotely raw. I am haunted by the image of raw meat being flung carelessly from batter to cooking pan; all i see is raw chicken juice sliding on the oven handle, fridge door, etc. I bascially follow up every cooking step by gassing the kitchen. This is my roomates' least favorite member of The Arsenal, as I am constantly 2 steps behind them during cooking, spraying each exposed area. I hear this has the uncanny ability to ruin romantic home-cooked dinners, but somehow my roomates have not reported me yet.


Next are the actions in The Arsenal. These are designed not to kill germs, but to prevent them from ever touching me.

1. Mad dash to the open door. See, getting a paper towel to open a door handle is all well and good, but that wastes unneccessary paper, and I feel I already am wreaking chemical warfare on the environment with the first three members of The Arsenal; I don't want to add paper waste to that list (too frequently, that is). Thats why when I see a door open, I run pell-mell to it to get through without touching the handle or massacreing trees. This occaisonally leads to strange bathroom interactions, or the extremely unfortunate circumstance of getting stuck in a closed door. I would give it a success rate of 88%

2.Tupperware. I wash my own tupperware, I witness the entire sanitation process; most importantly I am just about unable to eat off of plates and silverware from restaurants, especially the Styrofoam atrocities offered at the JC. Therefore, I pack my lunch of assorted probiotic and organic birdfood into my personally cleansed Tupperware,. I rarely get nauseous at the thought of eating off my Tupperware.

3. Toothbrush + Baking Soda + Boiling Water = Toothbrush sterilization. I MUST have my teeth and mouth clean at all times. I literally squirm if they are not up to par. However I always have the predicament of brushing my teeth with bristles that have been sitting in the open air, snatching germs up with the leftover water droplets. That's why every night I boil 1 cup of water, let a lumb of baking soda sink into the brushe's bristles, then wash the brush in the boiling water. This proces almost always allows me to brush my teeth without kirking out.

Are there more rituals and members of The Arsenal? Oh yeah, you should hear about the Special Circumstances Force. But the above 6 listed are the ones that I do so often that chances are if you see me for more that 1 hour at a time, you'll catch me doing at least one of them.

The Sneeze

I am sitting in Fenwick Library, just upstairs to the left in my favorite spot next to the banister. Sitting next to the banister is key because it limits the number of people that can sit next to me to one person at a table behind me. The library is empty, and I'm plugging away at a project
Then I hear it. It's an echo from the exposed lower level: the unmistakable sound of an uncovered sneeze.
There is an underbelly of society, a group of people that revel in their ability to tip the Richter scale with their sneezes. They are operatic in delivery, a dramatic combination of force and expulsion. Most heinously, they are uncovered. Through my extensive observations, it appears these people feel a sneeze aimed downward negates any and all germs shot out of their nostrils and mouth. This belief is comparable to the notion that the world is flat, or that the Twilight saga was well-written. It is simply incorrect.
Snap back to present: the echo of the sneeze fades from the air, and after slowly and deliberately counting to 10, I return to my work.
Heavy footsteps and chair shuffling behind me interrupts my thoughts. A casual backward glance stops me dead cold: it's the Sneezer.
His identity is unmistakable: his nose is red, chapped and running freely. Lose tissues burst out of his front pockets, and in his back pockets are wadded up tissues that I can only conclude are used. Biting back nausea, I force my eyes from the scene, not before witnessing his sleeve cross the nose and mouth in an effort to clear the snot enveloping the lower half of his face.
Oh. My. God.
I tell myself to deal with it. I tell myself I have to ignore it, that I must push past it. Maybe I would have succeeded, been able to ignore the fact that of all the tables in all of George Mason University, the Sneezer chose the one directly behind me. Maybe I could have even made great strides against my germophobia today.
Except for the fact that not 2 minutes after setting in, the Sneezer unleashed a monsoon of sneezes. In the vacuum of silence that follow, he giggles and says "Bless me!"
Bless you indeed, you filthy disgrace.
I turn to him with a hatred burning a thousand dying suns bright in my eyes, and spit out, "The proper way to sneeze is into the nook of your elbow."
Gathering my things, I flee the library.