That’s probably not the real word, but I do not doubt that there is a clinical word for it.  Everywhere you go now there is hand sanitizer.  We can’t seem to go more than a month or two without some scare story breaking about all the nasty bugs that live in some public place.  This morning the headline I saw concerned airport security lines.

Can we get some perspective please?  Yes, everywhere you go where lots of other people have been is likely to have lots of germs.  Yes, you should exercise reasonable caution, especially if you have any condition that would make you unusually susceptible to infection.  No, there is no reason to go about in fear of catching something from everything you touch.

The germ scares are just part of it.  We regularly see reports of some new discovery that common things we partake of every day will kill us in the end.  Yet we have not lived this long on average since the times of the early Old Testament.  It seems we’re doing a lot more right than we are wrong.  We should be wise in what we choose to subject ourselves to, but I for one will not live in fear of death by hand rail or plastic basket.  I’m much more afraid of the guy TSA let through the security line untouched lest they be accused of profiling while they molest my wife in her scooter.