Hey clean freaks! (different from neat freaks)

If you are one of those people who brush your teeth more than twice a day and/or wash your hands all the time and/or use that hand sanitizer to avoid a plague and/or repeatedly use disinfectant sprays on doorknobs and countertops and/or create toilet protectors out of toilet paper when there are no actual protectors to use because you can't handle the thought of your buttocks touching the same seat as someone else's buttocks...then this message is for you.

Stop it. Just stop. You are a slave to The Man.

You have been duped by advertising and advertisers and the bleeding paranoid evening news into believing things about germs and contamination that are not true, for the single and sole purpose of creating in you the perceived need for decontamination products. Watch your tv more closely, you'll see it. There's a whole campaign dedicated purely to you: the paranoid germaphobic.

And you also believe things about your own body that aren't true. Did you know that, in fact, you are probably increasing your chances of infection by vigilantly protecting yourself from all those germs? Because your body's immune system doesn't learn how to fight them off, that's why. Consider this: babies who do not have pets in their home stand a much higher chance of being allergic to animals than babies who do have pets in the home. Why? Because even baby immune systems need a work out. And for as much as germs adapt, our bodies also adapt.

Did you know that there are actually good bacteria that live on your skin? That not all germs are bad? That without certain bacteria in your guts, you couldn't digest food properly?

Trust your skin. Trust those white blood cells. The plan is, if we give our systems a good workout now, when we're younger, then we'll have a larger inventory of antibodies for when we are older, and our immune systems don't work as well.