Don't touch!

This is big news?

Regular wiping of student desks and use of hand sanitizers during the school day can significantly reduce student illness and absenteeism, a new study shows.

While we keep worrying about people sneezing on us or even breathing in our direction, it's become established by medical researchers that many of the gastrointestinal illnesses that lay us low are transmitted by touch. I'm not likely to become obsessed with this, but I am becoming more aware or the problem. The Kroger I do most of my shopping at has a disinfection-wipe dispenser by the entrance so we can clean the parts of the cart that we touch. I only noticed it a couple of month ago, and already I freak out if it's empty.

(The "don't touch me!" hierarcy, by the way: The rest of the world, me, Felix Unger, Monk, Howard Hughes.)