Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 106
Reasonable paranoia and modern-day cooties
S
store is staring at you, waito you’re in the sporting to see what you will do.
ing-goods store, lookThen the P.A. system
ing to buy new runstarts playing the knife muning shoes. And you find
sic from “Psycho.”
the perfect model, at the
Are you overreacting?
perfect price, among the
Maybe.
single
But you
shoes
have a deon the
cision to
display
make: to
rack.
cootie, or
But
not to coowhen
tie.
you
You
ask the
DON’T
TAKE
ME
SERIOUSLY
stare into
sales
the box,
guy for
and you could swear the disa pair in your size, he visits the back room and brings play shoe isn’t as white as
out a box with only one shoe its mate. And it seems to
throb and grow larger as
in it — the mate to the shoe
you picture all the grimy,
on display.
you-don’t-want-to-know“That’s the last pair in
where-they’ve-been fingers
your size,” he says. And he
that have poked and prodplunks the display shoe into
ded it.
the box, hands you the box
Worse yet, a vision comes
and walks away.
to your mind of a crusty,
Suddenly, two 8-year-old
tar-blackened, no-sock foot
girls pop up from behind
sliding into the shoe —
a clothing rack and wail at
’cause, you know, the oneyou in harmony: “Eeew,
toothed, scraggily guy on
cooties!”
the corner who asked you
Ah, yes, cooties … chilfor change had brand-new
dren’s slang for any type of
running shoes on — al frescontagious personal conco.
tamination. On the playAnd he had to get them
ground, this is an imagisomewhere.
nary contamination in a
“He probably got the last
boy-touched-girl sense, but
uncontaminated pair in my
it relates to a genuine, reasize,” you grumble to no
sonable, real-world fear of
germs, viruses and, uh-huh, one.
Of course, you check the
lice.
So you now have one pris- size of both of the shoes in
your box, just to see if they
tine shoe in the box — and
match — secretly hoping
one cootie shoe.
they won’t so you can avoid
The air in the sportingthis decision and run away.
goods store begins to get a
But they do match —
little too warm, and there’s a
even though your feet don’t
buzzing in your ears.
When you glance around, really.
And now you actually
you imagine everyone in the
Jim
WALKER
have to try the shoes on.
So you plop down on a
bench, pop your own shoes
off and slide the shiny-white
shoe from the back room
onto your foot. It’s a perfect
fit, and you begin to breathe
a little easier, imagining you
can wash the other shoe before you put it on.
But you know that’s not
right. As a runner, you must
be sure both shoes fit perfectly. You’re going to be
logging a lot of miles in
them.
You take a deep breath,
squeeze your eyes shut, and
plunge your other foot into
the display shoe.
And the girls pop up
again: “Eeew, cooties!”
But you skulk to the
counter anyway and make
your purchase, noticing that
the girl at the register is
careful not to touch the cootie shoe.
Now, of course, this shoe
story is a tiny bit of an exaggeration. But I did, recently,
see an exposé on television
about bikini bottoms being
returned to clothing stores,
whereupon the stores put the
used bikinis directly back
on the for-sale rack without
any type of cleaning or disinfecting whatsoever.
Yeah, “Eeew!”
“Looking for a bikini
miss? Sure, check out the
cootie rack.”
Thank goodness no mortal can refold boxer-briefs
and get ’em back in the plas-
tic package without leaving
clues. And you never, ever,
my son, buy the briefs with
Scotch tape on the package.
Beyond clothing (are
shoes considered clothing?),
the it’s-been-handled-andhas-cooties fear also has legitimate basis in repackaged
children’s toys (I’m thinking impetigo here), electronics (missing parts or internal damage) and, well, just
about anything.
Admit it. When you have
to take the display item for
any product, or the last one
left on the dusty shelf, the
one with the tape holding
the box together, you have
serious misgivings. And
only absolute necessity, or
one heck of a bargain, can
drive you on to complete the
purchase.
Cooties are everywhere,
my friends.
And now they’re in computers.
That’s right. No longer do
we have to touch anything.
We’ve made it easy for
cooties from across the
world to instantly enter
our homes and befoul our
most personal information
and communications. Every time you visit a website,
it’s stashing those electronic cookies on your computer. And another name for
those cookies, mes amis, is
cooties.
Despite all your anti-this
and your anti-that, your
cleanings, scans and brows-
er-wipes, your computer is a
seething, pulsing incubator
for cootie-yuck, just biding
its time before it jumps you
and all your e-mail friends.
And these cooties don’t
just contaminate. They also
observe, remember and
tell other cooties, who tell
their friends who tell their
friends, and so on.
It used to be only God
knew your innermost secrets. Now Google does,
too.
Beyond that, the computer
cooties are mean. What they
can’t filch, they’ll make up.
For example, you won’t find
out they got you on the nofly list until you reach the
airport, with your non-refundable ticket in hand.
And the computer cooties at the airport will put
your mug shot on the Web,
and cooties everywhere will
have a good laugh at your
misfortune.
So, remember, the kids on
the playground have it right.
Cooties are all around us,
and they are nasty.
But the fear of them is
your friend. It’s called molysmophobia — the fear of
contamination.
Abnormal reaction or a
reasonable paranoia?
When you start scratching, you’ll know.
Jim Walker can be reached
at jwalker@the-signal.com.
His column reflects his own
views, not necessarily those
of The Signal.
