Addicted to gel

I have a confession to make - I have become prone to alcohol abuse. Hang on, not the stuff you drink. I mean the slightly alien stuff you slather over your hands. 

I am addicted to hand gel. It kills 99.99% of bacteria. Well, that's just so appealing isn't it - why wouldn't you use it? 

I have never been more germ aware. I go about my daily activities always with the background goal of maximum germ avoidance. You might say that sounds like hard work - it is! But it is part of who I am. It is perhaps a little sad to have a part of yourself defined by your relationship with germs. It's not like I live in a part of the world where each passing day carries a risk of death by infection. I recognise that I am fortunate to live in a pretty sanitised environment. But in my defence I haven't always been this way - it is something that has gradually seeped into my consciousness to the point where, not only do I have a little tub of hand gel on my person at all times, I also find I am using the stuff at least 20 times a day, probably more.

It all started in my early twenties - I was forever catching colds, and I blamed this entirely on the bus. People are disgusting. Everyday I would watch them sneeze all over the place, use their hands as though they were tissues (why don't people carry tissues?! WHY?!), and then clamp these hands all over the railings, stairs and handles. And then I, unless I wanted to hurtle to my death, would have no choice but to touch those handles myself. So I took control with hand gel. The problem is that the more you use it, the more you become aware of potential germs. 

They're everywhere, germs. Door handles, kettles, chip and pin machines, money - the list is, of course, endless. Once you are on the alert it is really quite shocking how much people touch things, often just for the sake of it. Us hand gel-ers, we only touch a surface if we really have to.  

I am loathe to use the word OCD because I don't want to make light of a serious mental health problem. People seem to throw this word around as though it is fashionable, a desirable condition almost. But with that said I do sometimes worry, is my behaviour 'a bit OCD'? No. I don't think so. I'm not distressed when I'm doing it, more embarrassed. But the act has certainly become a compulsion. 

I can't imagine life without hand gel now - and this becomes a problem in that you start to find yourself wanting those that share your life with you to use it, too. Otherwise, what's the point? You can't effectively manage the germs coming into your home if your other half waltzes in from the newsagents with a fistful of germs swabbing at the light switch, the fridge door, your face. You can almost see the fluorescent green blobs - like the kind used in adverts for bleach - lighting up their hands like a Belisha beacon. HAZARD! 

None of this is exactly good news for your relationship, let alone your mental health. It's probably safer to just embrace the germs and put up with a cold for a week - I'm sure your other half would rather that than suffer with your issues for eternity.

Although in my case this isn't entirely true, because I have now passed on my little addiction to him - like a germ itself. He too takes hand gel to work. He too is constantly navigating the gauntlet of the outside world. You'll see us, clumsily opening doors with our elbows, pressing pedestrian crossing buttons with coat sleeves pulled right down over our hands teenagers in new school blazers. You'll find us at cash points using a loyalty card to jab at the keypad instead of our fingers.

All this exertion and contortion results in weird bruises and injuries to places like the side of our thumbs, toes and shoulders. And seems as both of us have had colds this last week I don't think it's worth all the effort... 

It makes me wonder - is it just us? Or, as a society, are we all becoming more germ aware? The very fact that hand gel is sold as a run-of-the-mill hand care product in Boots etc must be proof that it is cemented into the mainstream social psyche now. People must be buying the stuff, there must be a real demand. But when you think back to the Bird Flu masks of recent years and now the Ebola hysteria exploding over the globe it all gets frighteningly dystopian.

I worry that I have placed myself on a slippery slope - am I just a few years away from wearing a mask myself?

Wrong side of the tracks

A lot has been said on this subject but I'm afraid I am going to have to insist on adding my voice to the noise.

Commuting - I do it. I love it. Ok - sometimes I hate it...

I recently read an article in The Observer that struck a chord with me. Although this article was very London centric (as things often are) and therefore not exactly rooted in the reality of everyone's lives, it was also interestingly controversial in that it promoted commuting by public transport as a good thing. An unusual standpoint considering, aside from in environmental journalism, this is probably the first real vindication of public transport use I have come across - in the media or from actual people.

Apparently, some new research (yawn) by The University of East Anglia has found that public transport commuters are happier than those who drive to work. Out of the 18,000 passengers surveyed it was found that, even when other factors that may affect wellbeing were taken out of the equation, commuters who travelled to work on public transport scored lower on feelings of worthlessness, unhappiness and sleeplessness.

Now, I don't need research to tell me how beneficial my 90 minutes-a-day of public transport is for me - I've been reaping the benefits for nearly ten years, travelling cross county from Birmingham to Warwickshire via both bus and train (lucky me). 

I hope my status as a seasoned public transport commuter gives my opinions some kind of weight, because I am now going to rather grandly claim that commuting makes me a better citizen. Hear me out - I've got a list for you:

1. The thing about public transport is that it's all very, well, public. You're thrust right into the path of your fellow planet-sharers in a way that you just wouldn't be in the rest of your life, other than perhaps, say, the supermarket or, if you work with members of the public (brave), at work. So -  getting the bus actually keeps you in touch with reality. Ok yes, sometimes that reality is hearing the ins and outs of someone's argument with their ex-girlfriend, or having a small child throw up on your shoe. But, you know, if we aren't forced to interact with society at it's fullest how can we be fully rounded people? I'd argue I get more of a community (ugh, I hate myself for writing that word, I apologise) from the people I see everyday on the bus and train than I do from my actual neighbours. I don't necessarily like them, but that's not the point

2. Catching the bus-and-or-train builds many key life skills and generally makes you a better person to be around. You are more patient (that's alright bolshy lady, just shove past me with your many bags - I don't mind, I am a good citizen), you can empathise, you are probably quite kind (please do take my seat nice old man)

3. If you travel by public transport you could probably embark on a career-change and become a leading Body Language expert - you have no choice but to learn appropriate personal space boundaries, when and when not to smile, when to make yourself invisible

4. These skills also come in handy on the mean streets - you are sharper than your driving counterparts. You can rate a situation / person in terms of dodgy-ness and accompanying threat level in a matter of seconds

And I do honestly believe that my commute is also essential for maintaining my mental health - here comes another list, ooh:

5. Public travel time equals thinking time. I plan most of my life from the train. I don't know what I'd do without it. I'd probably be a disorganised mess

6. You also get time to be productive (I am writing this very blog post from the 08.22 to London Marylebone). Time to be leisurely - listen to that album you've been waiting to come out, read a book (books, remember those?), watch YouTube (with headphone on, please). Or, if you are a pain in the arse, talk loudly on your mobile phone and then cough everywhere...

7. Travel by public transport also means you get some physical exercise (ish) - which, say the researchers, is the crux of the benefit to your mental health

I know this is all a little tongue in cheek, but I do hope readers recognise some of the above in their own lives. Maybe we public transporters have a better sense of humour too - we have to, really, as we are faced with the 'laughable' incompetence of transport companies that we have no choice but to use, shedding out increasingly large amounts of cash to said companies despite, if anything, a decrease in the standards of our journey. Actually, as I type I find I am becoming less and less relaxed... 

I've obviously been painting too rosy a picture of public transport - on the other side of the tracks (sorry) lies pure, unadulterated RAGE.

Nothing, NOTHING, can make you more angry than public transport. There's obviously the cost. I remember when the bus cost an adult 90p, and that makes me upset. A return train ticket to work is now double the cost it was when I started.

But the real biggie is the cruel way in which public transport reveals the ugly truths of our modern society, and people in general. People are rude. Selfish and rude. A life of public transport has taught me this. As a queue-worshipping Brit, 'pushing in' is probably the thing that gets to me most, the thing that grinds me down and contorts me into the-irrationally-angry-woman-I-hate. It sounds ridiculous and really not worth bothering about, but I have had 30-minute phone conversations purely about something that happened to me in a bus queue.

I have shouted at people. Actually shouted. Pushed and barged. I regularly swear aloud to myself and at others. Is the stress of public transport pushing me to do things that are out of character? Or is it actually revealing what's inside of me?

So we're a split-personalitied bunch, but at least we public transport users are eco friendly. (Although probably not on purpose.) 

Bet those researchers are glad I wasn't in their study group.