I walked into the gym locker room and headed towards the urinals to take a leak and saw multiple barefooted men walking through tricolor liquids on the tiled floor that consisted of clear, brown and yellow wetness. While resting between sets, I saw a dude on the fly machine finish his reps. He then takes his index finger and digs in his mouth as if to dislodge a popcorn kernel from between his tooth and gum. When done, he begins to text on his phone. I saw numerous individuals use a work-out gloved hand to pick up their water containers by the top, untwist or pop-open them open, drink water and close them. Of course almost everyone has a cell phone or tablet they’re using for reading, texting, listening to music, surfing the web or taking pics and vids.

I think about how over 685,000 people contracted healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and 72,000 people died in medical facilities due to bacterial infections spread by doctors’ and nurses’ cell phones. Since 2015 HAI’s have decreased but tens of thousands of deaths still occur each year. I think about that time after I cut my hair and went to the gym, I developed folliculitis really bad on the back of my neck within a day. I think about the article I read concerning people having sex in the gym. Which made my thinking return to the men’s locker room floor…the possible ‘man jelly’ remnants those barefooted dudes could’ve been walking through.

I then remember the pictures of a man’s foot after he contracted a flesh-eating infection by walking barefoot in the men’s locker room.

Keep hand sanitizer in your car or bag to sanitize your phone once you leave the gym. If you want to splurged you can purchase a UV cell phone sanitizer / phone soap. By-the-way, I think these should be mandatory in medical facilities. In addition to this, if your phone is in a case, take it out once a week and clean it. Make sure to wear sandals or flip flops when walking through the locker room and showers. Wash your hands when you have finished working out. If you have to drink from your container during your work out, open it with your shirt or a paper towel.