Please Stop Sharing

As with most other things in my life, I like to approach how I handle germs with moderation and sanity. I do wash my hands, but I don't have 16-gallon drums of hand sanitizer around the house. I clean a lot, but I don't go through two canisters of Clorox wipes each day. I occasionally use bleach to scour the shower, and except for that one time that I ended up fading the sheets a little bit after sleeping on them post-shower, I don't use too much.

Unfortunately, the high number of disgusting, inconsiderate, germ-infested situations that I've been exposed to over the last few days have forced me to become a borderline germaphobe. Despite the illnesses that the rest of my family has dealt with this winter, I have managed to remain healthy. With a few additional, simple steps, I'm hoping to keep it that way.

At the club, I was waiting in line at the drinking fountain so that I could fill Zoe's water bottle, and I watched a man scratch his sweaty head, scratch his ass with the same hand, and then violently cough into that hand. And then he put that hand on the water fountain lever. For the rest of this winter, and probably for the rest of my life, if I need to use a water fountain, I will fold myself in half while balancing on one foot so that I can push the lever with my knee. Or maybe I'll just let myself become dehydrated.

While Zoe was swimming at the club, another little boy said: "Mommy! Quick! I have to go pee!" and they took off toward the men's locker room. They returned within 15 seconds, and the mom informed me that, "He didn't quite make it, and peed just outside the locker room door on the floor, but you can hardly see it." I sat there, speechless, and made a mental note to make Zoe wear rain boots to the pool next week.

After Zoe was done swimming, I walked into the locker room to find a teenage girl's belongings taking up 50 sq. ft. of space, including sweaty clothes on the bench, seven wet towels scattered around, her soaking wet swimsuit sitting on the floor directly in front of my locker, and her makeup covering a counter. There was also a woman sitting on a bench, with her hair twisted into the towel that should have been under her naked ass. After kicking the wet bikini out of my way and telling Zoe, "Don't touch any of the benches," I've decided that I will continue to use the locker room in the future, but I need to bring Hazmat suits in addition to the rain boots.

Doug and I were at a bar on Friday night, and a drunk guy chunky-coughed directly onto the back of my head with enough force to make my hair blow around. Since it would be completely unrealistic for me to not go to bars, I'll just have to start wearing a beekeepers hat and use a long straw.

I walked into a grocery store and while I was trying to separate one cart from another, I watched a woman touch a shopping cart handle, remove her hand, touch it again, make a face of disgust, and then she smelled her hand. Since there is no way I can get out of grocery shopping, I'll just have to start using my Hazmat suit gloves so that I don't have to touch the cart handles.

So, all I need to get is a Hazmat suit, beekeepers hat, rain boots, and a long straw. Or, alternatively, maybe other people could just stop being so gross.

A Party for What?

When my oldest kid started school, I was introduced to the process of subtly screening the other parents and putting them into categories. There were the crafters, the over-eager-to-volunteer, the enablers, the over-educated and the ones I could actually be friends with. Now that my youngest has started kindergarten, I am faced with a whole new crop of parents to weed through and I don't have near as much patience for this process as I used to.

Yesterday, one of the mommy's (Let's call her Ione, short for "I only have one child") left a message for me, using her most exasperated tone:

"Hi Zoe's mommy. It's Ione. The RSVP cut-off was yesterday, and we are wondering if Zoe will be able to make it to Suzie's Halloween party on Saturday. I need to know right away because I'm trying to assemble the party bags and organize crafts. Please call me right away because this is really important to Suzie. I know that all of the girls in the class are coming, because their moms RSVP'd already."

Apparently, while I had been dealing with my germ infested family last week, I overlooked the critical RSVP for Suzie's week before Halloween party. I'm guessing that the main reason Zoe was invited is because word got out that she is dressing up as a fireman, complete with crow bar and ax, and they want her there in case any of the highly flammable princess costumes go up in flames.

With 3 kids, a science project, two tennis tournaments, eradicating a gallon-size pickle jar worth of germs from my house, a geriatric dog that won't stop barfing, and the occasional need to pee, I'm happy to throw together a couple costumes and buy some extra sugar to hand out to the tricksters...on October 31. Needless to say, keeping track of an RSVP date to a middle-of-a-Saturday-you-don't-have-anything-else-to-do kindergartner's Halloween party wasn't exactly high on the list of priorities. Making sure I have cider to add to the Captain on October 31, definitely a priority.

After listening to Ione's message 4 times for clarity, I had heard correctly...party bags and crafts. I've seen a couple articles recently, supporting my belief in the banishment of party bags at birthday parties and criticizing the trend of inviting entire classrooms to get pedicures or go on a helicopter ride. I'm ecstatic about the fact that my boys are finally at the ages where the frequency of birthday party invites is diminishing, but just when I was choreographing my dance of glee, I find myself right back in the land of Who Can Overindulge The Most.

Needless to say, Zoe is busy on Saturday. She'll be at her brother's tennis tournament, being deprived of all joy and forced to go without craft time and the bag filled with whistles, bracelets and spa gift cards. Unless, of course, she has a relapse of last week's illness. In that case, she might make a surprise visit.

It Came With What?

Over the last week, my family has been a cornucopia of coughing, sore throats, fevers, one episode of barfing, H1N1, sneezing, and general discomfort. Somehow, though, I have managed to stay completely healthy despite the fact that I am constantly showered in a fine, sometimes chunky, mist of germs. It's been seven days of living in a drug-induced fog, and two of the kids have been on Motrin pretty consistently.

Zoe decided to make her medical encore in the form of an ear infection, so yesterday we finally decided to throw caution to the wind and, after fastening all of the buckles on our Hazmat suits, headed to the doctor's office.

The doctor confirmed her ear infection, pulled enough wax out of her ear to make a pillar candle (Q-tips don't fit into her petite ears. I've tried.), called in her prescription and sent us on our way.

We headed to Target to wait for the antibiotics, and I figured since the poor girl just endured a week of feeling like shit and then hearing me say "Don't touch anything or I'll have to cut your hand off" no fewer than 83 times at the clinic, I probably owed her a toy. She skipped happily to the toy department and, with frightening efficiency, chose a Playmobil equestrian playset. Since her brothers had also been sick, she picked out toys for them, too: a keychain and a microscopic Super Mario action figure.

When Zach and Charlie got home from school, she gave them their presents and waited for the thank-you's. Zach asked me if she got to pick out anything for herself, and I gestured over to the new Playmobil's. The boys walked over, looked down, and then looked at each other and started laughing. Charlie reached into the pile of plastic horse legs and fences and said... "Holy crap. It came with a whip!"