As noted before, the higher up on the body that contamination happens, the worse it is. Hence, when any part of the head comes into contact with a contaminant, it is a major event. At least the face can be wiped clean, but it is not so easy with the hair. How does one disinfect hair? It can’t be done; it is impossible to reach every surface of every strand. The only way to clean it is in the shower, and at work that is not very practical.
Today the back of my fingers on my right hand brushed against a dirty water bottle. The bottle was dirty because . . . well, I lost track of the trail of cross-contamination. But I knew it was dirty and that was all that mattered. I had made a mental imprint to remember that the bottle was dirty and I did. Over the span of a few minutes, I sprayed and wiped my fingers several times. Then I bent down to toss something in the garbage can, and my hair hit my fingers. Great! My fingers were close to being clean, but as mentioned, hair is next to impossible to clean without hopping in the shower. Then I remembered something I had done a couple of times before, but it had been a while. It was only the tip of a small section of hair that was affected, so I grabbed the scissors and cut off the offending lock. That was the simplest solution, and it worked well. I was slightly concerned that it might be noticeable, but I cut my own hair anyway, so it is already uneven, and it blended right in.
I recall the first time I snipped off some of my hair. It was a few years ago, it was in the bathroom, and this particular bathroom had a medicine cabinet directly over the sink. The cabinet was at the base of a large mirror and extended outward over the sink a couple of inches. I had just stepped out of the shower and leaned over the sink, and my wet hair swung forward and hit the cabinet. Obviously I am going to say that the cabinet was dirty. I could not control what happened in the bathroom when I was not in there (nor did I want to), so everything in there had to be classified as dirty. Well, my reflexes kicked in. My hair touched the cabinet, and I immediately assumed a danger pose. I was still leaning forward so that my hair would not swing back and hit me. My arms were held out to each side like a bird with its wings spread so that they would not be touched and contaminated by the hair. I stood there with my heart pounding not knowing what to do; I only knew that I didn’t want to get back in the shower for forty-five minutes when I had just stepped out. I can’t remember how long I stood there, but I knew I had to stand in that position until a came up with a better solution. When it finally dawned on me to just cut it off, I carefully walked into the other room still leaning forward with arms outstretched, found the scissors, tiptoed back into the bathroom where the lighting was good, and snipped off all the areas I thought possibly could have hit the cabinet. Saved by ingenuity once again!
As a side note, I stopped going to the hairdresser about five years ago. Those filthy capes that drag the floor, the chair that harbors germs from an untold number of people, the communal basin used to wash hair – I don’t miss it at all. The beauty salon was the only place where I felt dirtier after a hair-washing than before.
