The other day we decided to stop for a light lunch at a favorite place that has great soup.  We ordered and sat down at a table and that’s when I noticed him.  An older gentleman sitting at a table across the restaurant from me who caught my attention, but it wasn’t really him I noticed, it was his handkerchief.

It was obviously a well used handkerchief, a large, everyday, old school white handkerchief, and after blowing his nose loudly into it, he vigorously dug in and wiped his nose before aggressively stuffing it into his pants pocket.

Several thoughts went through my mind after the initial “ewwww”.  My own dad used handkerchiefs and I remember having to iron and fold them after mom would run them through a wash with bleach.  I don’t remember thinking about what was on the handkerchief before it was washed, but as I watched this man using his, it was all I could think about.

We’re so careful now with sneezing and blowing our noses.  We sneeze or cough into our elbow to avoid our hands (although I tend to fall back into old habits on occasion), blow our noses on disposable tissues that can be composted and use gallons of hand sanitizer afterwards.  My kids are so indoctrinated that if I sneeze in class, one of them will bring me tissues and sanitizer.

We do it to keep colds from spreading, but this gentleman was obviously not concerned about this as he proceeded to finish his lunch, hands all over the table, his dish and utensils.  After all, a cold never killed anybody, right?  Isn’t that what teachers hope for is to be exposed to enough germs to build up a tolerance?  Maybe our kids would actually benefit from this philosophy as well.  I’m sure any young teachers reading this right now just echoed my earlier “ewwww”.

A little while later as we were enjoying our soup, this same gentleman stood up again (not sure how that helped) and proceeded to go through the same ritual as earlier.  Now the word that popped into my head was “snot rag”.  Okay, maybe that’s two words, but that’s exactly what it was.  Probably not much better than the used Kleenex that my mom stuffed into her purse after using and reusing them.  She would throw them away when she cleaned out her purse, but in the meantime, everything in her purse was exposed to the germs.  And we all survived.

I think about all of this as we get ready to head back to school next week and the inevitability of 500+ little human snot rags who will be walking into my room.  Those same sneezers who will be wiping their little noses on my Kleenex after touching the counter and the box, and the outside of the sanitizer bottle.  I’m considering either my own Kleenex and sanitizer or maybe even my own handkerchief.