September 25, 2020
Dear Everyone:
I have come up with a
new procedure concerning those ”plastic” gloves that I wear while
shopping. Technically, they
are made of a substance called “Nitrile”, which is simply a name for a
very flexible kind of plastic.
Whatever.
While shopping, I
touch many objects, some of which may be contaminated with the
much-dreaded Coronavirus, plus multitudinous other pathogens.
So I consider the gloves contaminated, even though there is no
proof that they have anything on them more dangerous than mere dust.
Once I return to my
car, I generally remove the gloves.
But I’ve now added something that in business would be called a
“Process Improvement”. I
always keep a small bottle of hand sanitizer in the car.
I pour a bit out into my gloved hands and smear it all around.
Now the gloves are moist on the outside, with the sanitizer, and
moist on the inside due to perspiration.
I peel the gloves
off, making them inside-out, and place them next to my purse in the
passenger seat. By the time
I get home, the gloves are quite dry on the inside, which is now on the
outside. I stuff them into
one of the pockets on the outside of the purse (a well-designed purse
always has multiple pockets on the outside, as well as the inside) and
take them home with me.
Now, you could argue
that the glovers are still contaminated on the inside, which is actually
the outside. But consider
this: Suppose someone (very,
very large) grabbed you and dumped you into a swimming pool filled with
isopropyl alcohol, then pulled the cover over and fastened it down.
You probably wouldn’t be doing too well, would you?
Once home, I have
another Process Improvement concerning turning the gloves right-side-out
again. I use a large crochet
hook designated as “N” size.
This is a very large hook indeed.
Usually, one uses it with very thick yarn known as “chunky”.
Or with multiple strands of yarn at the same time, which can
produce a nice effect.
In any case, this
hook is approximately the same diameter as my smallest finger, or about
9-10 millimeters. I shove
the hook into one of the inside-out fingers of the glove and that makes
coaxing the thing back out again much easier than struggling with
fingers of both hands. And,
before you know it, all the fingers are back out the way they should be
and all’s right with the world.
As for the big
plastic size “N” hook, I can always wash it thoroughly with soap and hot
water. I wash my hands about
a thousand times a day now, or so it seems.
Or I can pop both the hook and the gloves, and a face mask or
two, into “Miranda”, my newest Best Friend.
Miranda is related to
“Prospero”, the ozone cleaner that I use every day on “Caliban”, the
Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine that I sleep with
every night. To keep pesky
microscopic beasties from setting up housekeeping inside Caliban, and
subsequently in my respiratory system, I connect him to Prospero, which
generates an ozone atmosphere inside the contraption.
All the microscopic beasties can’t breathe ozone, so they all
die.
Miranda operates on
the same principle. It
consists of a chamber which holds small items.
Run the machine, and all the microscopic beasties, including the
Covid-19 virus, perish in about 10 minutes.
Just think about all
the small things you touch every day:
Keys, sunglasses, flash drives, cell phone, TV remote.
How often do you clean them?
Face it, they’re all teeming with germs.
And you can’t just pop most of them into the dishwasher.
Really. Don’t do
that.
I’ve done some
research and there are a lot of possibilities on the market.
The best generally use ultraviolet light, which is also fatal to
the little beasties. But the
light has to hit them directly.
Ozone just floats all around them, killing them almost instantly,
however they like to hide inside nooks and crannies, without damaging
the objects to which they cling.
Of course, there’s
also the fact that I’ve had Prospero for over a year now.
And he’s been working just fine.
So, maybe I’m a little prejudiced.
Suit yourself.
Love, as always,
Pete
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