Hey You, The One Who Thinks Nobody Will Notice…Just This Once

Says who? Explain that to the person right now clinging to life

Photo by Alex Lvrs on Unsplash

“Who in licking her fingers, passes on, her germs to your confec-ti-on”

This line of an Australia hygiene ad, just popped into my head as I ruminated on how best to start this piece of writing.

For a long time my younger students would parrot that line to each other when eating, so clearly the ad was a success at the time.

Then another experience I had a few years ago when teaching English as a second language through a charity organisation also showed up in my head.

Our small working environment, just a few rooms, were bang in the center of the city, and just happened to be right next door to a very busy cafe.

The food smelt delightful, was always presented beautifully, everything cut to size, colours offsetting each other, a veritable delight to the eye.

Now this cafe, and our little business, just happened to share a communal toilet, shared keys to the toilets, so that many hands touched the keys.

One day a colleague whispered to me that in all the time she had used the toilets, she had never seen any of the…