Hey! Are any of you like me in that you looooooove to talk dirty? I mean like REEEEEAL dirty, like toilet dirty. Because believe it or not that potty is causing a major cyclone of germs right in your home, let alone the ones at work or school and not for the reason you think. Wanna potty-talk with me a second and see how?
Potty Parts
First let’s break down the parts of a potty. You got the tank right? And the handle? Then the lid, the seats, the bowl and then the base? Well arguably the most IMPORTANT part of the potty is the LID, and the lack of a lid on most public restrooms spreads so many germs, that soap or hand sanitizer can’t touch them because they aren’t even on your hands. You’re actually BREATHING the potty’s aerosolized tiny particles all over the bathroom. And the public restrooms have these high powered toilets that spray with such high pressure, I’m sure those particles are moving at sneeze speed or faster. Imagine millions of invisible particles from the toilet flying around the bathroom at warp speed. 🤢
The lid stops most of that but many public restrooms don’t even have a lid on the toilet. At home who even bothers to put the lid down? It’s such a fight! And so many of us insist on putting a nice clean box of facial tissues on the tank. Double 🤮!
So I’m on a mission to teach my entire household, workspace, co-op and any other space I enter what a crux the potty lid is. It stops the spread of SO MANY GERMS. But how to make them SEE that. I mean really visualize it. So I have a little experiment for us all at the end of this just to aid the cause. A fun one!
The Super-spreader!
Next culprit is also in the public restroom-no shocker there. And if my kids went to a public school I’d tell them to opt out of using it altogether. It’s the hand dryer.
A friend of mine, also a cleaning lady, flippin LOVE these gals, I tell ya, cleaning ladies are the best lot to hang out with, but I’m getting ahead of myself. A friend of mine recently went on a crusade in her kids school regarding the hand dryer in the restroom. She opted out of its use and instructed her class to choose to wipe their damp hands on their pants or shirt over using that hand dryer and her reasoning was that it, again at warp speed, spreads those tiny particulates around the room and aerosolizes them. She plans to have the lowest sick absences in the school, proving her case. But even if you RAN pell-mell, tumble-bumble out the stall before the toilet flushed to avoid the first spritz of toilet matter, then the hand dryer will tornado them and everything else around the room again. Bottom line is YOU ARE NOT GETTING OUTTA THERE WITHOUT A NASTY DOSE OF GERMS!! You can’t avoid flushing the toilet, but lids are an immense help, why the heck don’t we have lids in public restrooms? Is the public sanitation department so cheap, we had to do away with them? But you CAN avoid the hand dryer.
Experiment>
Do this with your household members, co-workers, at school or wherever.
Have the kids distribute a big bag of confetti all over the bathroom, I mean trash that place with it. Spread it everywhere! It will be so fun! Let it get in their hair, on their hands, on their clothes, spread it all over the bathroom counters, floors and toilet. And then activate the hand-dryer, and flush the toilet and watch the confetti fly all over the place like it’s New Years on the turn of the millennium. Watch it fly off your hands, clothes, and all bathroom surfaces. Now imagine that’s not confetti but all the germs you can’t see. I told I’d make you puke. If you don’t have a hand dryer and your doing this in the home setting, use a hair blow dryer.
The conclusion is simple – don’t get discouraged. Lower the toilet lid before flushing and don’t use hand dryers in public settings.
Now that’s enough potty talk for today-I’m gonna go neurotically clean my bathroom. 😷
Her House 