(another aside, until I very shortly return to the regular trans* related programming)
My father washes with rubbing alcohol. He unscrews the entire lid from the bottle, holds three fingers over the opening, then rubs it all over his hands and arms. Next, he scratches it into his legs, his feet.
Each time that he re-loads his hands with alcohol, I see bits of skin, hair, blood, effluvia swirl back into the bottle.
He believes that this ritual will prevent poison ivy, skin fungus, athletes foot, jungle rot, lyme disease, sore joints, arthritis, rheumatics, infections, Ebola, flesh-eating bacteria, and brain eating amoebas.
He is actually causing dry, itchy, raw, irritated skin which produces incessant sensations of ivy rash, creepy crawlers, dust mites, parasites, and melanoma.
After he leaves, I discard the bottle and purchase a new one.
The Final Rinse 
Aug 11, 2015 @ 00:35:02
Being a dog owner (i.e slobber, dirt, and hair all over the place), I’ve never gotten into the “must constantly use Purell” type anti-bacteria behavior. I believe in the expose yourself to germs and develop immunity theory. Be interesting to know where your Dad got the habit from (his father, reading about it, or making it up on his own). Some people like the cooling effect of rubbing alcohol.
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Aug 11, 2015 @ 00:48:22
When you haven’t lived with your parents for many years, you start to notice things about them that you didn’t recognize before.
My father has always done this alcohol ritual.
When I was three four years old, I remember waking up in the middle of the night with sore knees, on a regular basis. (I was born with both legs twisted at 180 degrees) My parents both rubbed alcohol into my knees.
My grandfather was an Italian immigrant, and was pretty bizarre. I retrospect, I think that he might have been an alcoholic for many years. My grandmother was severely schizophrenic. I don’t think that either of them did this alcohol thing.
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Aug 11, 2015 @ 01:56:41
I’m with Jamie on germs. I think they make me more resistant to diseases so I don’t worry about them much, though I do believe in washing my hands fairly frequently. This is an interesting ritual of your father’s. My mother had a lot of rituals around superstitious stuff that I always found annoying. I attributed hers to a mild case of OCD. Glad to hear you throw out the alcohol.
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Aug 11, 2015 @ 09:47:26
I wrote the alcohol bit as soon as my parents walked out the door. I read it out loud to my spouse, and we both laughed until we were in tears.
I am sure that I have plenty of behaviors of myown for someone else to laugh themselves silly about.
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Aug 11, 2015 @ 07:59:13
Ouch.
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Aug 11, 2015 @ 17:51:50
Ouch is right. I can;t imagine his poor skin.
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Aug 15, 2015 @ 08:05:05
I’m itching and stinging at the thought of rubbing alcohol on skin. So drying.
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Aug 15, 2015 @ 08:10:28
So Funny that continents and time zones away, we are commenting and liking each other’s comments instantaneously. What an amazing thing is the Internet!
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Aug 15, 2015 @ 08:15:32
Very weird. And I don’t hang on the internet all day or anything … I haven’t been blogging for a few months, so I have made a point to start reading a few blogs outside of my few regulars.
I get up very early (4:13 a.m. right now, in the Eastern U.S.)
🙂
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Aug 15, 2015 @ 08:18:40
It’s 6 in the evening. Watching TV, my phone tells me if I have a comment (no rest for the iGeneration).
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