In Fashion

The glob of goo shot out from the bottle. It missed my hand and left a tacky tail of liquid on my loafer. I grunted, like the guy in the cubicle beside me, and looked for a sheet of paper towel to remove the dribble. There was none. With little choice, I wiped my shoe on the back of my ankle and exited the public convenience. 

I'm finding sanitising to be an unpredictable business. Venturing from the cafe to the butcher and onwards to the baker, I am obsessed with sourcing stable bottles of ethanol-infused lotion.

A small bottle of sanitiser hangs from a carabiner attached to my jeans. It's my backup accessory of choice in these COVID-laced times. Busy hands used to require Solvol and Geoffrey was once told to wash his mitts, so nothing has really changed except for fashion.

Rubbing two hands together on approach to the pub is no longer a gesture of expectation, it's a race against time. With cupped palms cradling a puddle of germ-busting fluid, magician-like hand movements disperse the virus-fighting agents across my skin. And that's before a thermometer is shot at my brain.

At restaurants, I potentially sign my life away with a pathogen-heavy pen, put the instrument down and scan for a ubiquitous bottle of goo as the cycle of obsessive-compulsive sterilising resumes.  

Duck in to the supermarket and I find myself exhaling more than inhaling in order to avoid ingesting aerosol or stray sweat. There is an upside: holding breath does shorten my shopping time and often results in a cheaper 'tap' and quicker 'go'.  

When meeting mates, a touching of elbows instead of shaking hands has hastened the need for me to book an eye test. For despite all efforts at making contact of bent arms, I often miss the mark.

Focus elsewhere and the eyes have it when it comes to the wearing of face masks. But my life is mayhem as a result. Once the mask is attached, my ears soon suffer from an elasticised ache and warm breath channelled upwards sends my nose into an itchy spin before depositing a moist fog on my glasses.  

When adequately distanced I allow my personal protective non-medical Zorro-type disguise to flap freely from one earlobe. It's a crook look but goes nicely with the gel swinging from my hip.   

Calm is restored inside my car thanks to a spray bottle of sanitiser. Sitting proudly in the centre console, it is my co-driver in the fight against C19. There's no mucousy mess or spillage to cope with for the spray it emits sends a fine fragrant mist into the air that dissolves almost instantly. I douse my hands and smear the steering wheel with it and even squirt a bit under my armpits when short of deodorant. It's highly efficacious and almost ambi-perfect in olfactory effect.

Trying unsuccessfully to look good wearing a mask and coping with dehydrated hands during a pandemic are petty grievances. They're just sanitised examples of what it takes me to look mean and keep clean.