Do you touch the door knobs in public restrooms?

Irrationally, it depends on how clean the restroom is itself. I know that has little to do with who touched the door knob last, but..... if there are paper towels, I usually use them to open the door.

I almost always just walk out without even thinking about it. And sometimes I pay for that. It really is annoying when you walk out and the person before you didn't dry their hands enough and the knob is all wet.

That is gross. I'd like to kill those f*ckers.

Unfortunately, many establishments installed the airdryers to replace the paper towels. Often people don't want to bother airdrying - takes too long. I try to tell myself that the wet is from freshly washed hands.

Hell yes, baby! In fact, I have a whole routine for public restrooms. When I was just a little stray cat, my mother made it very clear that you just can't be too careful about public restrooms. I can remember trying to "hold it" while my mother swathed the entire toilet with reams of toilet paper before it she gave me the o.k. to sit down on it!

But then, my mom was the type who, whenever we stayed in a hotel room, would clean the bathtub before we could take a shower.

Neurotic, much?

I try to grab a part of the handle that wouldn't normally get much contact (very top or very bottom), and use my little finger. If I'm wearing a jumper or jacket, I may pull a sleeve down and use that as protection...

I think it was Fox news that did one of those scare reports about germs and they went around swabbing all kinds of things to see what was on them. One of the items was a bathroom doorknob in an upscale hotel - they found feces on it. They also found feces on the phone receiver because the maid had used the same rag to wipe up the bathroom as the rest of the room.

Nasty!

Not sure if it's true or not, but I read a long time ago that the cleanest cubicle in most public toilets is usually the one nearest to the entrance, as most people assume it will be the dirtiest and use one further down the line.

I always use the handicapped stall if I need one. It's nice and big in there, and you get your own private sink most of the time. Is that selfish?

So I'm the opposite of stray cat. I majored in bacteriology in college and I only worry about pathogens - as long as I am not immune compromised, as they say. There are billions of bacteria (and viruses) all around us, and always have been. I generally try hard not to stick my fingers in my mouth or polk my eye with them or rub them into a hairline scratch, especially not with my tongue hanging out frothingly.

I rationally try to think like Osso.....

besides, in some other studies they found that in office environments, bathrooms, toilets and doorknobs included, are cleaner than phone receivers and general office areas. now THAT is scary!

osso, that's probably the healthier attitude to have!



Ha! I do that too. There is more room, it's just nicer. It's sort of the presidential suite of toilets.

I took some epidemiology courses in university. As a result, I'm much less afraid of public washrooms than I am of most people's kitchen sinks.

There was a study just a couple of years ago that showed that the rails/railings/hang straps in subways are cleaner than many surfaces in people's homes and offices.

So - public washroom door knobs? I don't have the energy to get paranoid about those.

I'm the reason you don't want to touch the bathroom knob.

Amigo, I don't know why...but I like you.

I like to hang out in restrooms, just to smell other guy's sh!ts.

Is that weird?

I guess I should explain I mean university when I say 'in college'. But, moving along, fecal matter is just fecal matter.
Often innocuous, teeming though it is, and sometimes disease giving when applied to picked fruit skins when it contains shigella (I forget all the possibilities all these years later, but one of the hepatitises, I think.)

But... people have to have whatever it is to transmit it. Normal fecal matter is.... normal.

I should also explain I am talking about the first world situation, and not by the river in west africa - I am more chary of parasites and malaria and their vectors, which aren't doorknobs.

I know why Stray Cat. Cause I,m a cool dude with an attitude.