Not washing your hands, a lot like ‘Platoon’

by Neil Burns

Let me begin by conceding that I am a bit of a germ-a-phobe. Anyone who has ever spent more than a few minutes with me has undoubtedly heard me utter the words “gross,” and “ew,” numerous times, and usually in the same sentence. Unlike many unfortunate individuals who suffer from an ADA recognized disability, I know exactly where mine originated. In the early ‘90s there was a Saturday Night Live skit where they invented glasses that allowed people to see small amounts of fecal matter in a way much like night vision goggles enable people to see at night. I vividly remember my fear as Phil Hartman walked around a McDonald’s with his fecal matter glasses, seeing everyone and everything covered in fluorescent green goo. As the skit ended, I turned off the TV and laid back. As I slowly went out of consciousness my sister leaned in close and heard me softly whisper: “the horror, the horror.” When I awoke I had a new fear joining my list: spiders, clowns, dolls looking at me, and touching the bottom of a lake (any lake will do, they’re all creepy). Having relived my fears with a tragic courageousness in admitting all this, I don’t think I’m being too much of a David Putty in requesting that the male members of the law school wash their hands after using the bathroom. Although it may be a bit chauvinistic, I’m purposely excluding the female faction of our school from being included in this article, as I have never been in a girl’s bathroom, don’t know what all goes on in there (although it must be pretty damn cool as no guy has ever seen a girl enter by herself), and am leaving them out most importantly due to my sacrosanct and simple belief my mother and older sister taught me years ago, “girls don’t go number 2,” and even if they did, I have to believe they’d definitely wash their hands. I’m not sure how many times I’ve been in the bathroom here in school and witnessed what is to me anyway, an extremely traumatic experience. Standing at one of the urinals watching out of the corner of my eye in perfect terror as everything moves in extreme slow motion, and one of the stall doors open. Someone slowly walks out - straight passed the sink and out the door. The theme music from Platoon begins to play at top volume in the bathroom, as I lift my head, close my eyes, and raise my hands in the air to a God who has forsaken me. Just like Sgt. Elias Grodin after his Comrade Barns (Tom Beringer) shot him, left him for dead, and then is shot in the back as the helicopter leaves poor Willem Dafoe to die an unjust death in an unjust war. So there I stand hopeless and helpless as I shed a tear knowing I’m going to have to open the same door that that inconsiderate disgusting bastard just walked out of. Not to mention the never leaving fear all day long whenever I touch something different, and am forced to wonder: what if that dude touched this ____ (insert here any object: chair, door, book, lolly pop etc.) I know some of you are saying it’s too farfetched to believe that a law student in this day in age would be so cruel, inhumane and tragically negligent as to use the bathroom for number 1 or number 2, and not wash their hands. My answer to that is: No, it’s not. It’s a horrible offense not unlike the Mai Lai massacre that occurs in the bathrooms here and throughout the world every day. So in light of this sad and tragic tale I humbly ask the men of the University of Idaho College of Law: Please wash your hands when you use the bathroom.