The real pandemic is the number of dudes who don’t wash their hands after they piss

Recently, my friend said that there are some men whom she is compelled to ask, as if with a little kid, whether they washed their hands after using the washroom.

Oh boy, if only she knew.

I’m a guy, and trust me when I say this: the number of guys willing to go pee, not wash their hands, walk out, and shake your hand will make you throw up a little in your mouth.

I’d reckon that, based on what I’ve seen in public, the actual number of dudes who hose down a urinal and then walk out of the washroom without any hygienic intervention is somewhere around 50%. Now, add the number of guys who rinse their hands with water and don’t use soap (30%), and what you have left is a small number of men who may call themselves respectable citizens of the Earth.

I’ve even confronted friends about it in the past: after staring down a buddy rinsing the tips of his fingers for two seconds and then turning off the taps, he turns to me, notices something is wrong, and asks, “Is everything okay?”

“Not really”, I want to say, but instead I inquire (as he delicately wipes his wet fingers on his jeans) “Why bother rinsing your hands?”

“Good question,” he remarks, smiles to himself, and then appends, “might as well not wash my hands at all.”

Unfortunately, rather than realizing the err in his ways, I believe my friend took home the message that he should just not wash his hands.

This devilish behavior extends to the most “refined” of men. I have watched men with thousand-dollar suits and gold watches walk out of hotel washrooms with ammonia-smelling fingers, just as there was a man who — not realizing that his mic was on at a meeting about contagious diseases — used the washroom and neglected to clean his disease-riddled fisticuffs (below).

I remember that, even as kids, boys used to joke about the problem. One day, in grade school, I returned to class after using the washroom. Spotting an unsuspecting friend, I wiped my still-wet hand across his face and whispered “Don’t you hate it when people don’t wash their hands?” My friend recoiled in horror and readied a fist for primitive action until I mentioned that “it was just water” from washing my hands (which was true, although I know that some kids who played this prank were not so kind). The next day, true as the sun rises, my victim/friend played out the same prank on another hapless lamb, and soon every boy in the class had received/dealt the pee-slap mark of death.

Now, as the author of this article, I would love to say that I have been a perfect, walk-on-two-legs, straight-spined, model homo happens for everyone to applaud. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. I admit, there have been occasions where I have walked out of my washroom after peeing with a -1 hygiene credit. You would think it’s not so bad, really — all you’re doing is unzipping, flopping out your dangling participle, and going number one as God intended. No wiping needed! No pee on hands! Me no need wash! Me like big rock and thump bad man on head!

But life is never so uncomplicated. Toilets infamously catapult poo-particles up to three feet into the air upon being flushed, and when using public restrooms, who knows what happened to those doorhandles? Maybe little Jimmy has been on a road trip for the last 13 hours and has been holding his weiner to stop from letting go of all that Mountain Dew, and he just touched that washroom door you’re opening now. Maybe old Alfred has forgotten the directions to the Batcave and stopped at a Tim’s, and he scratched his butt before opening up the stall door you’re walking into now. More likely, though, is that maybe nobody wants your dick-wrangling hands touching everything without being washed first?

I’ll be the first to say that, although I may have sinned in the past, I look forward to a bright future, one where women don’t have to wonder if their friend has washed his hands.

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” so the saying goes — so unless you want to be seen as best buddies with Lucifer, be an angel and wash your fucking hands, eh?