PDC: Q-Tips

Americans as a whole are considered clean people. Compared to our European counterparts we may seem a bit obsessive. We generally shower everyday, brush our teeth twice a day, clip our nails, and frequently wash our hands. We use waterless hand sanitizers, sanitizing wipes, anti-bacterial band-aids, anti-bacterial sprays, you name it we've got it. Grocery stores have sanitizing wipes for customers to wipe off their cart handles. I was shopping this weekend and Purell bottles seemed to be everywhere! Nordstrom had a bottle and the NineWest outlet had one on every shoe display counter. Whenever a Purell bottle looks me in the eye I feel dirty if I don't use a little pump or two. We hate dirt and bacteria and will do whatever it takes to combat it! But I'm realizing that this cleanliness has gone a little too far. Are all of these Public Displays of Cleanliness done to prove that we are hygienic? Are we so worried that people won't think we are clean that we must perform these PDC's? I mean I used the Purell so my fellow shoppers would know my hands were clean. Other people must feel this way too.

Most of the time in a big city it is hard to feel clean. I walk along littered streets all day where pollution and cigarette smoke are blown right in my face and freshly Herbal Essenced hair. It takes a little getting used to. There are the obvious things you'd expect to see on any city street: trash, cigarette butts, gum, dog poop. But then there are the unexpected things I've seen: clothing sensors, various animal parts (I saw an entire frozen pig once), Diaper Genie, squashed rats, vomit, avocado pits, playing cards (Jack Burger wasn't kidding in Sex & the City), shrimp shells, my list goes on and on.

For some reason what bothers me the most are Q-Tips. In a city sprinkled with cigarette butts, the presence of Q-Tips almost goes unnoticed, but not by me. Not only is it disgusting, but also confusing. Since when has it been acceptable to be walking down the street cleaning out your ears?! Do people I know actually do this? Please fess up now. This is PDC taken to a whole new level!

This has become a mystery to me and that's partly the problem. Never once have I seen someone walking across 14th street, digging a Q-Tip in their ear, yet the remnants are undeniably proving that it IS happening. If you're going to leave the Q-Tip behind for all to see, wouldn't you want to take extra long, reveling in your PDC making sure all of NYC knows your ears are wax free?

Proving that you are clean is one thing, but where have manners gone? At one point in time wasn't it considered rude to even apply makeup in public? Women had to excuse themselves to the powder room to powder their noses (is that why small bathrooms are called powder rooms?) Now it is not uncommon to see women applying full faces of makeup on public transit.; drawing on their eyebrows and lip liner on the C train. I've seen the worst of it too--boogers and "feminine napkins" in fitting rooms, nail clipping in church and cubicles. I even saw a woman standing on 57th street loudly clipping away her 10 fingernails in the middle of the day. But the worst has to be Q-Tips on the sidewalks! I don't even want to imagine what's coming next and I am still on the lookout to see some Q-Tipping in action.

The more I think about it though, the more my PDC theory makes sense. The makeup applying girl is proving that she has a clean face and isn't wearing last night's makeup leftovers. She's basically saying to her fellow subway riders, "I showered today, I swear." So seeing Q-Tips on the sidewalks should be assuring me that my fellow New York residents are cleaning out their earwax. But for some reason it grosses me out too much.