Rules for Hand Washing

We all know that you should wash your hands after using the toilet. Unsaid, but equally well understood is the fact that there are some places where it's just fine not to wash your hands after you use the toilet. Let this serve as my attempt to quantify when and when it is not okay.

Not surprisingly, the specific rules differ depending on whether you've gone #1 or #2. (Let's face it, when you go #2, there's just the thinnest, flimsiest piece of material in the world between your hand and poop.)

It's okay to NOT wash your hands, no matter which number you've gone when...

• You're in a port-a-john. Obviously, there's not much choice in the matter here. I'm reminded of one particularly crowded football tailgate. By game time, one of the port-a-john's was so full, that the fluid was right up to the very top of the seat. There was even that millimeter of fluid that sticks up even higher than the containing vessel, whatever that's called. Atop it all floated a giant turd, left by God-knows-who.
• Right before a shower. If you're just hopping in the shower anyway, we presume your hands will get clean in there.

That's all I can really come up with. The rules are a little more lax when you go #1. In all cases, I assume that you're dexterous enough not to pee on your hands.

• Outside. If you're out on the back deck, having a cocktail at night, and if you want to walk over and pee in the bushes, then be my guest. Call me a redneck if you must, but that's okay by me.
• Football game, gas station, or similarly filthy public restroom. I often make the following judgement: "Which is dirtier? My bare penis, or this sink?" Oftentimes, the penis wins.
• In the shower. Yes, it's usually pretty trashy to pee in the shower. But check out how cool my bathroom is: The shower head just comes out of the wall of a big wet area. Fancy-minded readers will picture a spa. Non-fancy-minded readers will picture a high school locker room shower. It's something between those, but the point is, that I need only make a quarter turn to the right, and I'm standing at the toilet.
• In the swimming pool. Don't cringe. I saw you there, all summer, drinking beer after beer in the shallow end and never taking a pee break. It's tough to teach that to a small kid. This year I didn't even try. I let him bolt to the restroom every hour or more. Part of my worry was based on an incident early in the summer. Mrs. theskinnyonbenny was chatting with other moms, when one pointed and shouted, "Oh my God, He's peeing in the pool!" How would she know? Because V was up on the concrete, with swimsuit around his knees, peeing down into the pool water.