RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!

Picture it…you’re the person that washes their hands every 30-45 minutes. You never feel completely clean and it’s life-threatening-ly frightening to you to enter a preschool room full of 2, 3 & 4 year olds with dirty hands and quite possibly ‘dirty’ pants! This is Mr. Worship-man at my church. Okay, so maybe he's not THAT bad…allow me to elaborate…

Mr. Worship-man, who reminds me of what I think John would have been like (in the Bible), has such passion for worshipping God, both in song and in life. He prays with an assuredness and intensity that awes me. His desire is to chase after God with all his heart, soul, life, and that is how he leads others. He is AWESOME!

Like all of us, even this man of God has “issues”. His ‘issues’ clearly appear to be “germs”! He abhors germs. It’s become a bit of a joke among some of us to find something ‘germy’ to tell him, or better yet SHOW him…to “gross him out”.

During a recent “Potluck” he was found in the kitchen (absent of all men usually), “sterilizing’ the container for tea. He was trying to figure out how to get all the bubbles out of the now sparkling container! This case is actually a bit warranted because the container had been left for a bit too long ‘brewing’ fungi, in the form of mold on some old water. Yes, water in Oklahoma molds…gross isn’t it. Water never MOLDED in Colorado! What’s this about? No wonder people here don’t drink beer as much as other states, their WATER comes fermented! People can scoff at me for BUYING water all they want…at least I’ve never seen it mold!

Stay on track, Kim, stay on track!

He and his wife are expecting their first child and while it’s so exciting, it’s given my husband great pleasure to point out all the “germiness” of parenthood (obviously only from observation and limited exposure).

After working a stint in the “baby nursery” this past Sunday, my husband couldn’t wait to tell Mr. Worship-man about how babies chew on toys and drool all over everything (present company INCLUDED), and then another baby comes along and picks it up and starts drooling and chewing on the same toy!

My husband experienced and shared the drool, the sneeze-in-the-face, the kicking, the pulling of leg hair (always wear long pants around babies if you have leg hair…hey they’re learning how to reach and pull! Notice how many moms wear their hair UP and BACK, DUH!). He didn’t get to experience the formula-spewing-in-the-face or the diaper changing surprises. He was playing with one baby a bit too ‘rough’ (the lift, toss and catch thing) and I warned him of their explosive behavior. In his words, humans are a ‘closed system’; they look for and find exits for any build-up!

Anyway my husband, observant man that he is, continued to think of the things to “warn” Mr. Worship-man about in his new-parent-to-be bliss. I only wish there were a video to capture Mr. Worship-man’s expression of utter fear at the prospect of the germs this baby will encounter and will expose him to.

I often find myself laughing at this poor man. He just has no idea. I tried to explain that between the doors we touch, the money we handle, even the restaurants we frequent, we obviously have a pretty good built-in defense to germs. I think he visibly shuddered as I shared this. I most certainly will purchase a NEW DAD gift of a basket FULL of those antiseptic wipes and waterless cleaners (don't tell him studies show they're fairly ineffective, k?).

Having a degree in Biology with an emphasis in Microbiology has been amusing at times like these. I spent an entire semester on a senior project which consisted of identifying and classifying a “bug”. Not a bug in the sense of (shiver with me) cockroach or visible insect…I mean bug in the sense of GERM…bacteria! The stuff some infections are made of. Trust me when I say…they are EVERYWHERE! Even the boy in the plastic bubble was exposed to SOME bacteria and germs.

Don’t get too ‘bugged’ by it (aren’t I funny), just wash your hands thoroughly (use the Happy Birthday song to gauge how long), at least after each bathroom break and for some of you…more often, depending on your external exposure to others…and use soap!

Why are you still sitting here...go wash your hands!

Happy Germ-Free Eternity!