MARK MY WORD: HAND-WASHING SURVEY SHOULD BE FIRST OF OTHERS

"Wash your hands."

When I was growing up, moms routinely said that to their kids. My mom used it almost as a greeting.

It was common household advice, along with "brush your teeth."

But times have changed: Washing your hands is ancient history for many people today.

Of course, we know that because of a survey. In America, you can't go through life without surveys.

Americans today probably are the most surveyed, studied and probed people in the history of civilization.

Nothing is sacred from surveys, including washing up.

Some things are harder to survey than others. Take this study.

Researchers stationed themselves in public bathrooms in five major cities to get the scoop. Talk about looking for dirt.

The researchers hid in stalls or pretended to comb their hair while observing more than 6,000 men and women doing their business.

The research folks clearly gave new meaning to splitting hairs.

In my mind, people had good reason not to wash their hands in front of bathroom spies.

If I saw someone peeping at me from inside a stall, hand washing would be the last thing on my mind. I'd want to get out of there.

At any rate, these intrepid researchers didn't wash their hands of the whole business. They stayed in the bathrooms and watched people wash up.

They discovered that washing up is a lost art.

They found the country's dirtiest hands in New York City. Just 60 percent of those using restrooms in Penn Station washed up afterward.

Chicago hands were relatively clean, unless you count the official types at City Hall.

The washroom watchers saw 78 percent take the time to wash after using the bathroom at Navy Pier.

Sixty-four percent of patrons at an Atlanta Braves game washed their hands, but most of them were women.

The scruffiest guys were the ones at the Braves game. Just 46 percent of the guys stopped to wash up compared with 89 percent of the women.

It's hard to wash up when you have a beer in your hand and you're spitting tobacco juice all over the place.

Besides, what is the point of washing up when you are going to go right back to your seat and dig your hands into some greasy nachos.

The survey was sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology, along with Bayer, the aspirin company.

I can understand the society being involved. Those guys love infectious diseases.

The folks at Bayer probably figured the survey results would give some parents a headache, which would send them to the medicine cabinet to load up on aspirin.

Naturally, it's parents that are being blamed for the decline in washing up.

It seems we're all washed up on the subject.

As a father, I hate to hear such talk. I encourage cleanliness.

But there are not enough hours in the day to wash off all those Magic Marker colors that get on my 4-year-old's hands.

At any rate, hand washing means little when you just make a quick pass under the running water.

Now that this survey is in the can, those researchers could turn to other matters. I suggest they study another important issue: Scooping the poop at a horse show.

I was one of a group of three adults and five children who attended the Lipizzaner show last week at the Show Me Center. The horses were magnificent. But it was the poop scooping that was a hit with the kids.

Some people just know how to shovel it. Just ask all those researchers.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.