The 99.99%

1235 The 99.99%

No, it’s not about THAT 99.99%, you know, those of us who aren’t billionaires.  It’s about the hand sanitizers that claim to kill 99.99% of “germs.”

You want to be germ free?  Use soap and water.  Oh. Wait.  That’s WORK.  Why work when you can squirt on a chemical, in two seconds you’re germ-free -- well, almost -- and you don’t even have to dry your hands.  

The wonders of modern science leading you to a healthy life? Except they aren’t.  What the explosion in the use of this stuff has done is Darwinized the world of microbes.   Survival of the fittest.

That tiny sliver of a percentage of the germs that the chemicals don’t kill are the ones posing the danger.  They’re the fittest.  And the most deadly.

Okay, so you use the stuff when you’re in a hurry. Maybe a hand wipe towelette when a public restroom isn’t handy or after a restaurant meal.

That’s not a problem.  But these sanitizers are in EVERYTHING these days.  They’re even working on an ingestible version so you can be assured that that banana doesn’t give you some foul condition.

It’s in hand lotion.  It’s in dishwashing liquid. It’s in laundry detergent.  The wipes are available free at supermarkets so you can “sanitize” the push handle on a shopping cart.

It’s in household sprays that claim to make your garbage smell like a Yankee Candle display.  The stuff is cheap and effective, so everyone buys it.  And eventually it’s going to do us wrong.

Think of it this way: there are a billion germs in a few square inches of your kitchen countertop.  You pour on a little cleanup stuff and 99.99% are executed.  That leaves a few square inches of counter space with only the few that survived your attack.

They have a family reunion.  They welcome old friends they haven’t seen in forever.  And you know how germs are. One thing leads to another and all of a sudden, they’re having babies.  

A day later you have another billion germs in the counter space.  Only these are the mean and nasty kind that the 99.99% kept separate from each other and kept from multiplying.

These hoodlum germs have organization, numbers and powers and they’ve put out mob style hit contracts on Mr. Clean.  And you.

Shrapnel:

--Is Boehner showing some spine after all?  He vows he will not let the country default.  He can do that, but likely at the expense of his job.

--The teabags, however remain the spineless hotheads they always were.  If they wanted to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act or delay it, they could have put that to a direct vote instead of as an irrelevant amendment to important legislation.  Oh, wait… they did that around 40 times and failed each of them.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013