Its a common fact that riders doing multi-day stage races often suffer from stomach bugs or flu. I was recently told that one of the primary reasons for this was not only because of the immune system taking a knock from all the physical exertion but also from the contamination that occurs every time a rider digs his SIFF sweaty glove into the food at the various refreshment points.
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| That's right - use those sweaty SIFF gloves to sift through the potatoes... |
You know what its like riding from a cold start: you're clearing your nostrils and then wiping the snotty remnants onto your glove. You're sweating, wiping your face. Occasionally you also have the unpleasant experience of having to wipe your face because the rider in front of you chose to empty his nostrils too close to you....never nice! Point is, your gloves and hands pick up a lot of germs during a ride and the next minute you're busy sifting through a tray full of chelsea buns or potatoes as you look for the one you want. And each time you're touching that food, your germs are spreading everywhere - like Chinese people over the globe (that's not racist - its a fact!)
More about facts - if you want to avoid flu, wash your hands more often. That's true. Peoples hands are septic! Think of the surfaces you touch - and a recent study (actually, there have been hundreds of these studies done) highlighted the areas that have the highest germ count:
TOP CONTAMINATED SURFACES IN STUDY
1) Public telephones
2) Public restroom surfaces
3) Counter pens
4) Chair armrests
5)Elevator buttons
6)Escalator handrails
7)Shopping cart handles
8)Grocery refrigerator handles
TOP CONTAMINATED ENVIRONMENTS IN STUDY
1) Children’s indoor playgrounds (apparently super-siff!)
2) Bus stations
3) Gyms
4) Theaters
5) Pools
6) Restaurants
7) Work environments (laptops/phones...ultra sickly!)
8) Doctors’ offices
So why this post? Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't we be washing our hands BEFORE we take a pee? Why do I want to hold my faithful member with hands that have recently been holding a siff workphone; pressing collective-siff lift buttons; touching uber-siff stair rails; opening mongrel-filthy tiolet door handles...and then taking hold of my clean, bathed, and innocent member with hands that are by now covered in zillions of germs?
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| Why do we use dirty hands on our clean members, and then wash them afterwards? |
Old Percy is probably dreading every time we need to go for a whizz. "Oh no", he thinks when Mr Bladder gives him a prod, "I can't believe he's going to touch me with those hands..." The zip goes down and the filthy digits come a-digging for clean Percy. And after we tuck the Johnson back? We then go and wash our hands. Seriously? This practise means that we HAVE to wash our hands the next time we slash because of all the germs we left on the poor chap from the last whizz.....
I think we've got it all wrong. Its a bit like people saying we need to save electricity but back home the domestic is spending three hours a day ironing clothes.....ironing clothes? Talk about a waste of time and electricity. It serves NO purpose! Ironing originated hundreds of years ago to rid clothing of beastly bugs that may have crept into the folds. Last thing you want is a nesting spider to run into your armpit and sink its shiny fangs into you because you disrupted it when you put your shirt on. But that was before Speedqueens and tumble driers. Now we iron clothes to make them neat.... But don't get me started on that.....besides, I don't want to type on this SIFF keypad anymore.
