Muffin Friday & The Importance of Hand Sanitizers

Journal Entry: Weight = 173.0; Coinage = $3.19 ( a big quarter day at the canisters); 74 pennies, 6 nickels, 7 dimes, 6 quarters; Glass bottles = 7; Ground score = 1; Recycled clothing = 1 man’s shirt, first recycled item for 2010.

Feature Entry: Muffin Friday & The Importance of Hand Sanitizers

Each Friday morning the MoneyWalkers set aside their traditional high fiber cereal breakfast for a bran muffin and 12 oz. decaffeinated coffee at the local coffee shop. Ours is called the Bean Gallery. Right outside their door are three newspaper vending machines, a New York Times, a USA Today, and the local daily, the Times Picayune.

Ignoring Ms MoneyWalkers cringe, I stealthy approach each one and carefully examine the coin return slots. Through experience, I have learned that the inspection requires full attention. Sometimes left-behind coins are on their edge along the side or hidden behind mysterious bends and crooks inside the mechanism. The careful searches requires aggressive searching by the fingers. "What is that feel, oh it is a dime tucked way back in the corner."

Fast forward to the bran muffins and coffee; after washing my hands, Ms. MoneyWalker pulls out her purse-sized container of waterless hand sanitizer. Only after a scrub, scrub, scrub can the muffin/coffee/paper read begin. “What good are a few nasty coins if you catch the H1N1 virus,” she reminds me.

But are hand sanitizers really necessary? Yes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They state that adherence to hand hygiene can reduce the transmission of antimicrobial-resistant organisms and other sources of infections. They continue to recommend careful hand washing as a supplement to the alcohol-based waterless hand cleansers.

It doesn’t seem to matter which type is used—gels, wipes, or sprays. Most alcohol sanitizers contain isopropropanol, ethanol, n-propanol or a combination of these ingredients. Some contain aloe and vitamin E. Nearly all brands report to kill 99.99% of germs. To be effective, the hands should be rubbed for 15 seconds.

There is one contra indication. Constant use of the product has been reported to disrupt the natural germ fighting capabilities of the hands.

Back to muffin Friday. "Dear, do our muffins taste funny, mine seems to have an aloe flavor."

MoneyWalker