My friend MaryCatherineFullofGrace just sent me one of those pass along e-mails, the kind that gives rise to urban myths that eventually migrate into some semblance of fact. The source of this scare concerned the heinous disease magnets that are purses. I suppose I never give much thought to the places my handbag can dredge up disease, but apparently some insightful soul did. This person, noting that woman tended to rest their purses in some pretty skanky places (the ground, restroom floors) decided to actually have her hand bag tested in a lab.

The end results indicated a large amount of positive readings for feces, vomit, bile, bacteria and other kinds of nasty shit you can possibly adhere itself to a vulnerable surface. Presumably, we transfer said nasty germs into our kitchens and homes and spaces that we live through the careless slinging of the handbag, thus spreading vile disease. The end of the e-mail extolled, "Pass this along to as many women as you can!" Good Lord! That was the last thing I was going to do.

I already know too many women who are chronic germaphobes and this will only incite them to start wrapping their fancy smancy Kate Spade handbags in plastic bags as a protective shield against the elements. I still am surprised when I start to leave the ladies room, reach for the door handle and hear someone squawk, "You shouldn't touch the handle with your bare hands!" Seriously? What should I use? My ass? My foot? I have a hand for a reason. Still, I see more and more women (and maybe men do this too—I haven't been in the men's room for awhile) using paper towels to open restroom doors.

It's curious how germ conscious we are these days. If you saunter down the soap aisle in a grocery store, the bar soaps now tout themselves as "anti-bacterial." There are anti-germ hand wipes and anti-germ towlettes to clean your kitchen counters and anti-germ sprays to clean your toilets. You can sanitize your home and all your body parts, but the truth is, you ultimately must go out and interact with the world. Just riding the subway is a test of your immune system: you will be in close contact with people of varying states of health. You will be clutching some built in device in the subway to keep yourself upright—presumably, thousands of other people have clutched the same thing so there's a chance there are a few germs festering there. And that's just the ride to work.

If you use a public restroom outside of your pristine, germ free home, it's likely that someone else has also sat on the toilet you've just sat down on. The whimsical paper rings they provide to put down on the seat are window dressing as far as I'm concerned. A little piece of paper will hardly keep you sanitized (and odds are, your purse is with you, resting on the floor). So your ass may be safe, but you're still bringing germs home with you. The Glamazon is a strong believer in the virtues of the paper toilet seatcover. I once had the chutzpah to ask her what she did when seatcovers were not provided. "Oh, I squat over the seat like a crab," she said. Yikes--thanks for that visual. That made me think of some graffiti I once saw on a bathroom wall; it said, "It's no use standing on the seat/Our live crabs can jump 50 feet." That still makes me laugh.

I have to imagine as we have evolved as human beings and well, are made of stronger stuff. We are no longer the waifish folk of earlier centuries who are carried off by cholera and typhoid. The more we encounter the mutations of germs and pollution and chemicals in our foodstuffs, we develop even stronger immunity to it. I think if you tip toe around it by popping Airborne like Altoids or wrapping all your pristine bits in plastic, you undermine the immunity you've built up. That's how I see it, anyway.

When MaryCatherineFullofGrace forwarded this e-mail to me, she made a note suggesting it might be blogworthy. Indeed, dear sister, it is. I'm just getting started.