Dear Anne Fills In

Oh JazzBlog readers. Hello! Jazzy is teaching a class this week and is pretty involved in what he's doing so he asked me to do his blog for him so you won't get bored. Of course I accepted -- ham that I am. And I have something I'd like to discuss with you that is of great importance. It's the contemporary phobia we seem to have about germs.

Honestly, I don't understand. I was in the ladies room the other day and watched as a woman came out of the stall with her hands held up in front of her, closing the stall door with her elbows, and using those same elbows to turn on the water at the sink. Once her hands were washed, she took 3 paper towels and dried them. But instead of tossing the  used towels in the can, she took them to the restroom door and used them to wrap around the door handle so she wouldn't have to touch it.

I wondered where those used paper towels were going to go as I made my way into a stall for a little park bench time. There I found an unflushed toilet with used paper seat cover still in place. I remembered the little sign over the toilet in my friend's very old farmhouse: 'If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down.' The sign was intended to protect the house's ancient plumbing. But here I was in a modern office building.

Could it be that the person who used the toilet before me would not risk touching the flush handle or the used seat cover for fear of germs?

I finessed the cover into the bowl and flushed the thing. Then I hiked up my skirt, pulled down my pantie hose and sat on the cold, naked toilet seat. I ain't afraid of no germs.

After washing my hands (and tossing my towel in the can), I headed out of the Ladies Room. Just outside the door, there on the floor, in the corner was a neat little pile of used paper towels. Apparently, our lady of the elbows wasn't the only one fearful of touching a bathroom door handle!

Have we all gone insane? Are we really that frightened of disease that we'll turn our public restrooms into pig stys?

I grew up in the country. Oh, we had plenty of money -- enough to keep us fed and clothed and warm in the winter, and even enough to hire a part time maid several days a week. My mother was prone to blinding migraines whenever the subject of cleaning, cooking (and got knows what else) came up.

So, several days a week, a large, pleasant Black woman named Miss Annette would come to our house. My mother would often take the day off, driving into the city to visit a friend. Or she'd spend the day in her bed, flipping through magazines and glancing at the television. My sister and I were left in Annette's care and we rolled about her feet as she did dishes, ironed my father's shirts and ran the vacuum.

Annette had a 5 second rule. She believed that anything clean that hit the floor stayed clean for 5 seconds -- and was safe to put into your mouth if picked up in that period of time. This went for Cheeto's (which she absolutely loved. In fact, I remember the fine velvety smooth ebony skin around her mouth smeared with yellow Cheeto dust ) sandwich meat, half eaten lollipops, etc. In short, my sister and I grew up eating off the floor. And we were rarely sick.

I have a theory about this. I believe that your body builds immunity to hostile agents through exposure. You are exposed to this virus or that germ, to the measles or the mumps, and your body goes to work defeating the invader. Once the battle for planet-you is over, you will have developed a natural Resistance to that particular strain of badness and will be less vulnerable to it in the future.

I believe that our immune systems learn how to protect us through constant exposure to small amounts of the dangers around us. When I was eating off the floor in Miss Annette's kitchen (it was much more hers than my mom's), I was strengthening my immune system and making it germ resistant.

This modern mania of not touching anything, of slathering your hands with Purelle several times a day, of using a flushable toilet bowl cleaner, of wearing surgical masks in public. . . well it just seems so much silly nonsense to me. By not trusting your body to defend itself, you're teaching it to be weak. You may have the most germ free hands in Albuquerque but you'll be more vulnerable to infection.

The designers of bathroom fixtures have gotten into the 'don't touch' act. We now have water faucets that magically come on when a hand is waved in front of an infra red beam near the top of the sink. Toilet flush by themselves when they sense movement before them. Paper towel dispensers dutifully spit out their precious cargo when they sense a hand nearby. Of course I use these things when they are available -- what choice do I have? But i never use them without thinking to myself, 'Now, isn't this silly?'

I remember my best childhood pal, my dog, Rags. She was a happy and lovable Springer Spaniel my father found frightened and lost on the street one day. Rags would eat anything anywhere at any time. Sometimes she'd ever go out and turn over a garbage can or two in search of a tasty scarf. She was never bothered by germs. In fact, I don't thing she even believed they existed; I mean: nobody had ever shown one to her . . . or to me, for that matter. And you know what? I never saw Rags with a cold, or with the Flu. She was never sick and down in her bed for days at a time. On the contrary, she was healthy as a mule and ready to go and do at the drop of a hat. Now I can't believe that my own body is more fragile or vulnerable to attack than Rags.' In fact, I have to believe that Rags was trying to teach me something . . . and it's a lesson I got.

So, please: don't let your irrational fears take over and drive your behavior. Germs (if they exist at all) ane tiny inconsequential things. They can't hurt you; you're much bigger than they are. Let's stop this germophobic hysteria before we all start wearing full-body condoms.