I'd known about Richard Preston's The Hot Zone since high school, at least, and had always wanted the read it. There was just one problem: I couldn't bring myself to touch the book. Whenever I saw it at a bookstore or library, I'd stand in front of the shelf, wringing my hands and wondering how I was supposed to take it down, much less read it. The rationale (if you want to call it that): by touching The Hot Zone, the Ebola virus would seep through my fingers and, in a matter of hours, I'd be ravaged by the disease before dying in extreme, horrifying pain. When I finally read the book a few years ago, I did so wearing rubber gloves.
I also have a big problem with library books. This is why I don't have a library card: whenever I think about library books, I think about all the people who've touched them. I imagine someone coming out of a restroom without washing his or her hands and then wandering into the H section, taking down an Ernest Hemingway novel, then putting it back. (I realize this should hold true for bookstores as well, but neuroses never make sense.) Or I imagine someone taking a book home and reading it while sick with the flu, or while spending some uninterrupted quality time in the bathroom, or after an evening of wall-thumping, Iron-Man-marathon, keep-the-neighbors-awake sex.
(Inspired by ...)
