My favorite smell is rubbing alcohol. When I shared that rather unique fact during an icebreaker at a Link Crew training, someone told me that alcohol reminded them of hospitals and death. But if you really think about it, isn’t that pungent, medicinal odor such a beautiful reminder of cleanliness? Perhaps its smell isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea (or alcohol), but no one can deny its potency as a disinfectant. Contrary to my family’s belief, I’m not a psychopath, but I suppose I look like one when I pull out my alcohol spray bottle and a few tissues to, rather inefficiently, clean the sofa after my mother invites her friends over.
I wasn’t always like this. As a big-backed 8-year-old in Saturday Chinese school, I distinctly remember dropping my 肉鬆包 (pork floss bun) on the black, concrete floor during recess, picking it up and going straight back to eating it without hesitation. How do I remember this intriguing experience? Well, how can I forget when my family brings it up every time I go on a crazed cleaning spree? They constantly compare my current “germophobic” self to pre-COVID-19 Isabella, a being that “even a pig would kick out of its own sty.”
Postpandemic, I switched extremes. I went from having no concept of cleanliness to an obsession with alcohol spray bottles and an elaborate five-tier cleanliness standard. Adopting a precautionary lifestyle during COVID-19, the girl who once ate a pork floss bun from the ground began to fervently wipe all the groceries that came into the house and double-mask even while running Mile Club in middle school.
Over time, some part of me realized that maybe — just maybe — dousing everything in alcohol couldn’t have been much better for my health than interfacing with just a few more germs. Half of the cleanliness procedures I undertook were simply placebos, idiosyncrasies that I kept up for my own comfort. Biology was one of my strongest subjects. I understood infectious agents and their transmission, but I couldn’t manage to let go of these ritualistic habits.
In the years since COVID-19, I’ve relaxed these rules to a more reasonable degree. Still, some part of me will always do a surgeon scrub before touching my contact lenses. Some part of me will always wipe my phone after coming home from school. Some part of me will always scan through a foreign bathroom for paper towels, automatic sinks, trash can locations — planning it all out in my head to make it out of the bathroom without directly touching the terribly unsanitary door handle.
Maybe, like double-masking, these core habits will all disappear one day. Maybe they’ll always stay. Either way, some part of me is dedicated to maintaining a healthy environment — a challenge that may entail putting down that lethal alcohol spray bottle.
