Confessions of a Germaphobe

by Clark Zlotchew

Year 2 BCP (Before the Covid Pandemic):

I, Edwin Q.  Lillypad III, am known by friends and mortal enemies alike, as a germaphobe. With good reason.  I have a deathly fear of germs, as should every sane person.  I avoid public gatherings such as movie theaters, restaurants, classrooms, even supermarkets. One place on whose premises I have never ventured, once I was old enough to make my own decisions, was the public swimming pool.  That is a location, or as people love to say these days, a venue, that I especially fear.

The public swimming pool holds more terror for me than a snake pit writhing with the most disgusting serpents, the most venomous vipers, hissing menacingly, showing their poison-charged fangs, squirming in the throes of ravenous appetite, glaring at me with smoldering fury. And appetite, let’s not forget..  A public pool is the perfect conductor of disease.  People from every walk of life frequent the pool.  So many of them harbor a veritable smorgasbord of bacterial and viral infections, perhaps fungus, which swim from the human host into the cauldron in which other humans offer their skin, their noses, mouths, lungs as though they were saying, “Here I am.  Come and get it.”  Well, that’s just not my cup of tea.  Call me crazy, but I refuse to offer myself up as part of some stew, some feast for the microscopic hordes of invisible ninjas.

However, I decided to take advantage of a wonderful opportunity to have a lovely two-week vacation on the tropical isle of San Anselmo de las Pulgas, in the Indian ocean. The brochure—the slick cover of which displayed the photo of a beautiful island girl in a micro-mini grass skirt—had mentioned that this tropical island boasted refreshing trade winds which kept the climate perfect all year round. Fierce sun, yes, but the robust breezes banished the humidity and made for delightfully comfortable days and nights, with absolutely no need of those diabolical air conditioners, which could harbor the deadly Legionnaires’ Disease.

Best of all in this package deal was the price. Two weeks at what the brochure described as “the best hotel on the island’ —including the round trip airfare!—cost a mere 375,320, 280 Anselmo rupees, which came out to 998 American dollars!  A veritable steal! I couldn’t resist. I suppose I should have remembered that old saying, “You get what you pay for.”

I would like to say the pilot of our Intrepid Airlines flight confidently swaggered aboard, a self-assured smile on his beaming face. I would like to, but it wouldn’t be the truth. This decrepit geriatric specimen—he appeared to be about eighty years old—staggered aboard, smelling of rum, opened the cockpit door with trembling hand, stumbled in and slammed the door behind him. The plane was crowded to the point at which there were passengers standing in the aisles! There were not enough seats. Brawls frequently broke out among the passengers which the black-bearded flight attendant quelled most often with red pepper spray to the eyes. On one occasion, he booted one brawny miscreant in the scrotum, after blinding him with spray. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.

The “best hotel on the island” (there were only two hotels in San Anselmo) had two floors with rickety staircases. The entire building, exterior and interior, had been painted in nauseating, now peeling, chartreuse. My bed was lumpy and draped with mosquito netting, which I certainly made use of, since the window was wide open to allow entry to the famous salutary sea breezes. Naturally, there was no air conditioning, so I was grateful for the wide window. I soon discovered, however, that there was no breeze. I inquired at the desk about this. The desk clerk, whose appearance very much resembled that of the slovenly character played by Humphrey Bogart in the film The African Queen, smiled broadly, showing wolfish teeth, and told me, “Yes, yes, you should have been here last month. But in August we are always in what I think one might call “the Doldrums.” His fixed smile, which did not involve his eyes, seemed false. He nodded and affirmed, “Only in August.”

“So,” I said, “you’re telling me that in August…”

“Yes,” still grimacing, “no breeze.  You choose wrong time to visit.” He still had that diabolical rictus on his stupid face. As I turned and stomped off, I heard snickering.

So, there I was on one of those sweltering, breezeless days of August.  The temperature was 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, intensified by 98 percent humidity. Am I exaggerating?  Not at all; facts are facts. I simply had to escape.  The solar rays, beneficial to farmers, seemed to me like death rays propelled by futuristic weapons. I thought of taking refuge in an air conditioned movie house in downtown San Anselmo, but, good heavens, I never attend movies even back home.

A long time ago I learned that one’s shoes make clicking noises with each step down the aisles of movie theaters because the floors are sticky with unidentifiable substances the origin of which I refuse to contemplate. These substances, of course, remain on one’s soles and will contaminate your home. The upholstered seats are stained and impregnated with mysterious effluvia whose contact with one’s person would be certain, but lingering, agonizing death to the occupant of the seat. I know I tend to dramatize, but I think justifiably. So, I reluctantly discarded the idea of the air conditioned movie theater, which was probably the only structure on the island with air conditioning, because it had a ten foot wide sign at the entrance bearing the hand painted message: AIR CONDITIONED!

You would think I would go to one of the many beautiful pink sand, palm studded beaches on the island. When I considered doing so, I saw a newspaper stand, and bought a copy of the local daily. Large headlines announced SHARKS!  BEACHES CLOSED. At this point the sun beat down ferociously, so I retreated to my hotel room to escape the rays. Sitting in that chartreuse steam bath, my perspiration was dampening my clothing. What was I to do in this anteroom of Hades?

With fear and trembling, with great trepidation, with sweat-soaked shirt, I made my way to the dreaded public swimming pool.  I was torn between being boiled alive in the humid haze of an exceptionally uncomfortable day, on one hand, and dragging my weary posterior to a public swimming pool with all its inherent microbial dangers.  I flipped from avoiding the Devil’s bathtub, so to speak, to reversing course and taking the valiant plunge. Somehow, I made this choice between two horrors through wishful thinking.  I arrived at the conclusion that water, the necessity for life on this planet, was cleaner than viscous floors and pestilential seats.  Not very scientific, I know, but when one finds himself between the devil and the deep blue sea, if you will, or the shark infested ocean and my personal Steam Room in the hotel, I chose the possibly, hopefully, lesser evil: the Municipal Pool.

By the time I made this agonizing decision, perspiration was pouring from my pores like the raging waters of Niagara. I fairly flew along the eight city blocks that led to the pool, knocking over baby carriages, pregnant women and elderly citizens of both sexes who tottered along the way, employing walkers.  I know it was wrong, but I was desperate to cool my feverish body.  Besides, it’s a question of the survival of the fittest in this germ-ridden vale of tears.  I’m thirty-eight years of age and in excellent condition.  No doubt this is due to my avoidance of the arenas of disease.

I paid the admission price with trembling hand, feverish brow and fear in my heart, rushed into the pool area without bothering to stop in the locker room for a change into swimsuit.  I hadn’t brought one, anyway.  I rushed to the poolside and jumped into the supposedly refreshing macro bathtub, raising a geyser of water as well as a host of eyebrows.  Well, those who raised their eyebrows were far enough from the geyser not to feel the spray.  Those closer squinted, rubbed their chlorine-soaked eyes and then glared at me.

I felt good, refreshed by the cool water.  But then I noticed that people were shaking their fists at me, shouting obscenities.  How could they use such foul language in front of little children?  But then I could see their point: I had recklessly plunged into the pool, which I now noticed was only two feet deep, meant for children learning to swim.  The little darlings were accompanied by parents, instructors, and nannies.  I also noticed, or remembered, that I was fully clothed in baseball cap, L.L. Bean polo shirt, Calvin Klein jeans, black socks and, I must remember to mention, a pair of Clark’s shoes. Those shoes, sad to say, had suffered some alteration caused by my panicked, reckless flight through filthy puddles of mud and the calling cards, shall we say, of what probably had been canines of the Great Dane variety.

As I stood there, enjoying the cool relief from the torrid heat of lethal solar rays, I became aware of a subtle but definite metamorphosis gradually taking place in the water.  When I first plunged in, the water had been an almost transparent, limpid blue.  But now it was slowly turning to a somewhat lemony color.  This puzzled me.  Simultaneously the water temperature seemed to be rising, very, very slightly, but noticeably to my well-honed senses.  You see, I have a greater sensitivity to stimuli, greater, that is, than that of the average person.

So, there I was, fully clothed and shod, standing in two feet of water, surrounded by screaming babies and toddlers who had been frightened by my, shall we say, unceremonious entry into this refreshing yet potentially pestilential broth of microbes bearing who knows what deadly tropical diseases. In addition, it was unsettling to be surrounded by infuriated adults screaming obscenities at me and threatening me with bodily harm. In the midst of this maelstrom of frenzied humanity and water that was not merely undergoing transformation in color, but was changing in temperature, I finally realized that the excitement was affecting the little tykes to the point of decreasing even more than usual their notoriously relaxed bladder control.

Can you imagine?  I was practically wading through a veritable cesspool of baby pee –perhaps with adult contributions—while, as I repeat, fully clothed!  Do you understand?  My expensive clothing was being ruined! My person was being defiled!  Yes, defiled!  But that was as nothing compared with the actual dangers to life and limb menacing me in this mosh pit for vicious microorganisms.  I couldn’t decide which was more dangerous:  the broth of microscopic disease bearers invading my every pore or the threat of savage violence hemming me in.  Of course, if I were the victim of mob violence in that pool, I would also be infested with all those germs at the same time.  I envisioned myself battered and bloody, sinking into that toxic septic tank. I would be doomed, utterly and irremediably doomed!

As soon as I comprehended the terrible danger in which I was immersed, I shoved my way through the infants, toddlers, mothers and nannies–carefully avoiding the men who looked like body builders and were trying to reach me—climbed out of the pool and ran, through the terrible heat and humidity (humidity multiplied by wearing urine-drenched clothing), my feet loudly squishing in the soaked shoes, and beat a panicky, malodorous, and shameful retreat to my oven of a chartreuse hotel room.  Now, here I sit, cold compress on my brow, thermometer in my mouth, blood pressure cuff on my arm, just waiting for infection, for sepsis to overtake me, in a word, for the Grim Reaper, his freshly sharpened scythe at the ready.  I now make a solemn vow never again to tempt fate by entering a public swimming pool.  Of course, if my worst fears come to fruition, entering or not entering that vortex of contagion becomes moot.