[To be read in a deep male voice like that guy that does all the narration for every movie preview ever made: In a world much smaller than our own, the constant threat of 'disinfection' leaves a colony of prosperous E. Coli wondering how much more time, if any, they have. One bacterium, exiled from the colony of his budding, must now find the gene for Ampicillin resistance or face certain extinction. Gene Hackman....Keanu Reeves...in a Robert Zemeckis film..."Log Three Reduction"....This Summer.]
Now, I'll be the first to admit that this would most likely flop as a science fiction film, and not just because of Hackman's overacting and Keanu's horrible acting. (He was convincing as an actor when he played an idiot, Bill, or Ted, in that one movie, but not as a cop or a robot or a guy on a hijacked bus.)
No, the film would flop because I am convinced that at least a part of America does not realize to what extent we share our world with those little one-celled bugs we call bacteria.
How do I know this? Well, the evidence is overwhelming. Go into a gas station bathroom, or a fast food restaurant's bathroom, and you will find a sign that states: "All employees must wash their hands thoroughly before returning to work. Todo empleado tiene que lavarse las manos mui bien antes de volver al trabajo." Do people need to be told this? Call me naive, but shouldn't everyone know how absolutely DISGUSTING it is to even think about not washing your hands after you go to the bathroom? Even if you don't speak english, shouldn't it still be painfully obvious?
Until every American figures that out, there is no hope for world peace. Well, that's not true. But there is certainly no hope for a cure to the common cold, or AIDS, or cancer, but especially the common cold.
I know a guy that grew up in a rural community and he honestly believed that your chances of surviving a car wreck were greater if you didn't wear a seatbelt, so that you could be "thrown clear of the accident and not be smashed to pieces right in the middle of all that potentially explosive gasoline." Well, that's just dumb. But, at least its debatable. There is no way to show that in 100% of accidents you are better off wearing a seatbelt.
(Incidentally, the way the guy drove made me really want to wear a seatbelt--to avoid being "thrown clear of the automobile" on a 50mph turn.)
Don't get me wrong here, I think you should wear a seatbelt all the time because the chances of getting in an accident in which you would be better off not wearing a seatbelt are about one thousand times less likely than the alternative, and preparing yourself for the improbable option just because it might also allow you to recline more in the passenger seat is not logical. Unless you're really, really tired.
My point is, this guy's little idea about not wearing a seatbelt is marginally debatable. But washing your hands is a no-brainer. It has been well established, even with out the use of a microscope, that there are bacteria on your skin and they multiply as fast as, well, bacteria, which is to say, doubling about every fifteen minutes. So, let's pretend you wash your hands and by so doing kill all the germs except 2. Then you go four hours without washing your hands. That's 2-4-8-16-
32-64-128-256-
512-1,024-2,048-4,096-
8,192-16,384-32,768-65,536-
Back in the dark ages the old english peasants, when regarding vermin, avoided soap and thus had the attitude, "Bring it on." This turned out to be mildly prophetic, as the general lack of hygiene ended up "bringing on" the black plague, thereby killing 1/3 of Europe. (That's a lot of peasants. But even more germs.) Actually, the plague came because of the fact that humans lived in such close proximity to rats and fleas. So, in a sense, humanity has come a long way. Most of us don't share a bed with flea-ridden rodents.
Bored yet? No? Because I could go on. But I don't think anyone would gain from that. Just wash yer dang hands. That's a moral of this story, plain and simple. Another one is: Wear a seatbelt. Another one is: Don't raise your kids in a rural environment, but if you have to, teach them the importance of wearing a seatbelt. And how to wash their hands before returning to work.
