Refrigerator Microbes

Dear Mrs. Newton,

I met my roommate, Laurie, at her workplace, a hospital lab, because we planned to go straight to the movies from her downtown location. She asked if I could wait a few minutes because she was finishing up a project. I said "no problem" and she offered me a soda while I waited. I accepted. She walked to a refrigerator down from her lab bench, opened the door and selected a Diet Coke. Before the door closed behind her, I got an eye full of the other stuff in the refrigerator. EeeeeeeeUuuuuuu. I made a production of yanking the ring off the Coke, but I wasn't going to drink from that can if my life depended on it. I thought about wiping the top off after running water over it in sink near Laurie's workstation, but realized immediately that wiping wasn't gonna do it for me, and who knows what else had been in that sink. Yuck!As we were leaving, I slipped the full can of pop into the trash. How can she eat and drink stuff that has been sitting in the same space as her specimens?

Grossed Out Girlfriend

 

Dear Grossed Out,

Okay, perhaps keeping food in the lab fridge isn't the best of solutions for the afternoon munchies, but the point is your roomy knows about the invisible world of germs. She understands how they move around and how to keep them from getting somewhere where they are not wanted. She probably laughs secretly at you when you make a big production of washing your hands in the restroom, only to grasp the door handle on your way out and rub your face a second later. The coke is okay. But knowing something is clean in your rational mind isn't going to do anything about your sensibilities. You aren't going to be able to erase the picture of those little specimen bottles or Petri dishes, so don't feel guilty about wasting the Coke. Scientists have foibles too. I know one who eats the food on his plate sequentially – all the peas, then all the potatoes, then all the meat. And another who eats his hamburgers in a circle. If she starts storing strange biological samples picked up from her hiking trip in the refrigerator you share at home, put your foot down. Roommates have to compromise about the spaces they share. Tell her to buy one of those little bar units.