Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Purses: Full of Germs


While eating lunch this afternoon, I watched an episode of Rachel Ray that taped last week on TiVo. Boy did she have the most interesting segment. It was all about the germs on your purse. :X Ewww! Ewww! Ewww!

The segment was geared around a mother who was a self proclaimed germaphobe. They showed video of her wiping her kids hands with wipes, with 'magic soap', wiping her countertops, the grocery cart, door handles, and even as obsessive as bringing her own fold up toilet seat into public restrooms. All the while focusing on whereabouts she places her purse at various places she makes stopped at - inside the shopping cart, the park bench, the park slide, the public restroom floor (I must admit, this one really surprised me, if she's a true germaphobe, she wouldn't have placed her purse on the floor of the restroom).

They took her purse and sent it to a lab that swabbed her purse and sent them for cultures. The results that came back even surprised the scientist conducting the study! The purse showed signs of E. Coli, Staph, a form of yeast, and another form of bacteria that causes urinary tract infections.

The scientist talked about how your purse picks up germs when you sit it in grocery carts, on the floor of the restaurant, the floor of the public restroom, and the park bench. Sat on all those germy places, ultimately to be brought home and set upon your kitchen counter, dinner table, other common area.

The solution: to use hooks to hang up your purse in the bathroom, to hang it on chairs when in restaurants, to use the same antibacterial wipes you use to wipe your kids' hands to wipe off your purse.

I don't know about you, but I plan on picking up a cheap tub of antibacterial wipes at the Dollar Tree just for my purse!

3 comments:

Kim said...

She put it on the bathroom floor? Come on, that's disgusting! (I admit I have been forced to do that a time or two--kid disasters and no place to hang or set my purse--but I always wipe it afterward and I'm not even a germaphobe!)

Darcy said...

I know! Pretty disgusting, huh??

Anonymous said...

My Mom has been getting after for me on this for years now. I think she saw it on 20/20 or something. Anyway, she has these purse hangers that hang on a restaruant table, and that is where it goes everytime we are at a restaruant. We tease her about it, but she actually has the right idea.

Just think about the bottom of your shoes...that is why I have a shoe rug by my front door...I don't strictly inforce it, but maybe I should.

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