Hand Sanitizer

So my twelve year old daughter comes walking by me and I smell something very
fragrant.  I thought it was perfume.  “She seems a little young to be
wearing that?” I thought.  So I asked her what fragrance she was
wearing.  She smiled and said it was hand sanitizer.  After a moment
of embarrassment I thought about it.  Hand sanitizer is everywhere. 
They have it at grocery stores so you can wipe down your cart.  They have
it at gas stations so you can get rid of the smell of gas.  They have it in
doctor’s offices in case you come up against a germ they didn’t catch when they
wiped down the furniture with sanitary wipes earlier.  Even in my
daughter’s back to school list, it said to bring hand sanitizer.  What is
going on?  We have become a nation of germ crazy people.  Everywhere
you go they have hand sanitizer.  We never had it when I was growing
up.  Somehow I survived and if you’re reading this, you did too.  Then
my doctor told me those products kill most germs but don’t usually affect
viruses.  Isn’t that the big argument in favor of hand sanitizer?  I
have also read that lack of exposure to germs makes people less tolerant of them
and therefore, more susceptible to illness.  I’m not against being
clean.  Wash your hands.  Great idea.  But the hand sanitizer is
just too out of control.  It makes you wonder how we lived without
it.  I guess it’s still better than my daughter wearing perfume already.