I am a germophobe.

I am a germophobe. There. I said it. I am a germophobe. I went to 2 different shopping malls today. And it was a Saturday during the Christmas shopping season. Did I also mention that I'm not very bright sometimes? That's another blog for another day though. For now, I'm just going to discuss my fear of germs.

I wasn't always this way. I think it started after I had my son. Not immediately, but soon after. I don't like touching things in public. Especially escalators or door handles. I don't like using public restrooms. I don't like when people sneeze or cough near me. I keep antibacterial hand gel in my car. And on my desk at work. And I use it often.

Today when I was at Mall #1, Eric & I had lunch at the food court. Eric got chinese and I opted for a nice sub at Quiznos. A woman put my turkey and cheese sub together, then placed it on the heater. It came out the other side to a gentleman wearing rubber type gloves. I thought that was very good that he wore gloves when handling food items. Especially my food items. After he retrieved my sub and placed it with his gloved fingers onto the paper, he then took one of his gloved hands and grabbed a fist of shredded lettuce and placed it on my sandwich. Then he wrapped up my sandwich and put it on a tray. Immediately after that, he told me how much my order was, and I handed him the money. With his gloved hand, he took my dirty money, and made change for me from the cash register. A few pennies, a nickel, a quarter and a few dollar bills. Then the phone rang. He picked up the phone with his other gloved hand and began speaking. Then with his other gloved hand, he handed me an empty cup for my soda that I was to fill myself. At this point I was pretty grossed out. I'm not sure how long he had been wearing the rubber gloves, but I could only imagine what all he had done while they were on his hands. And it made me a little queasy. I ate my sandwich anyway. I was hungry.

After lunch, I had to use the restroom. Which was the typical Christmas-shopping- season-public-mall-restroom disaster area. I found an empty stall, did my usual cleaning routine of the seat, and didn't sit on it anyway. Finished my business and as I was washing my hands with the hottest water I could stand, I saw a woman with 2 young children exit a stall and depart the bathroom. Bypassing the sink area completely. I walked out behind them as they went on to stand in line at Burger King. With their filthy hands. I met back up with Eric and we went to pick up Alex, who was attending a birthday party at the Laser Tag facility in the Mall. The one with the hundreds of germ ridden kids running around playing video games and touching everything in site.

We left Mall #1. I went to Mall #2 on my own later in the evening. It was much the same as mall #1, only bigger. Much bigger. And much more crowded. Which meant many more germs. After I quickly did all that was on my list, I vowed not to return there again. At least not until well after the holidays. And well after cold & flu season.