Adrian Monk a tad overblown?
The TV character's quirks may be exaggerated, but not by much.
By Robert Biller
As with most things Hollywood, the idiosyncrasies exhibited by the eponymous protagonist of the television series Monk are overstated and atypical. Many germophobes successfully navigate life's seas without causing serious social ripples or drowning their loved ones in whirlpools of angst and obsession. Adrian Monk is a fascinating character in a popular show, but his antisocial behavior is exaggerated for comedic effect.
Germophobia (more correctly identified as mysophobia) affects a significant number of Americans, and its incidence is increasing, perhaps due to the extreme anxiety produced by media coverage of epidemic and potentially fatal diseases such as AIDS, avian (bird) influenza, and the MRSA staph bacteria.
During the last few decades, the importance of better hygiene has become integrated into the fabric of daily life, resulting in the adoption of microbe-defeating procedures, including the dental profession's use of surgical gloves, masks and drapes. Always the germophobe, I feel compelled to say gloves and masks protect the dental-care providers and not the patients.
Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! I see them everywhere. Not the visible creepy-crawlies with six or eight legs, but the kinds "ordinary people" can't see - bacteria and viruses. I visualize them as a pulsating mist resembling the heat radiating off a hot automobile hood.
The holidays are approaching, heralding the season for giving and receiving - colds and the flu. My obsessive fastidiousness and compulsive cleanliness are too demanding and time-consuming to be generally adopted in combating winter's health woes, but several routines, ingrained in my germophobic nature, will greatly reduce any practitioner's chances of becoming ill. Remember: It is better to be proactive than reactive.
Frequent, dedicated hand-washing is your best defense against infection. I imagine my hands are covered with urushiol (blistering poison ivy oil) as I vigorously scrub them with soap and water while slowly reciting the alphabet. A hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol will suffice in a pinch, but the hands must be relatively grime-free for the alcohol to be effective.
Over the years, I have developed the ability to rarely touch my face, and this propensity complements other preventive rituals. Not only am I adroit at avoiding my own epidermis, but I politely abstain from touching other people - except immediate family. Coworkers and friends are aware of my peculiarities and don't seem to mind.
My final tip is to covet the last row in theaters, auditoriums and houses of worship during flu season. Nothing is as disconcerting as having a ready-to-be-hospitalized flu victim, with a full-blown respiratory infection, hacking behind your back and bathing your head and neck in a cloud of infectious, lung-expulsed, mucous-covered droplets.
Because unbiased self-evaluation is dubious, at best, I solicited my wife's opinion on how effectively I have waged my germ-defeating warfare, and this is her verbatim evaluation: "Although Rob has been convinced, during most of the 30-plus years of our marriage, that he is seriously ill, even to the point of writing his own obituary, he has never, actually, been sick." How's that for a ringing, enigmatic endorsement?
A little germophobic fussiness combined with a timely flu shot is a great recipe for a healthy holiday season.
Please excuse me, but I have to go. I can see a fingerprint in the gathering dust on the side of my mantel clock, and it's beginning to drive me crazy. What's next? Dust bunnies?