Do I actually believe that about children? Eh…I won’t say I do. But I believe there is some truth in it. I think that a lot of children lack the sensibility to understand why hand-washing and germ control is important.

  I teach kids between the ages of 9-15 in a musical theatre class. There is one kid who is on the younger side who really, really didn’t want to wash their hands after eating a marshmallow treat and licking it all off their hands. Eventually they begrudgingly trudged to wash the sludge off their mugs, but who’s to say that they didn’t go into the bathroom, wait for twenty seconds, and come out again just to keep me happy?

  But are kids the only grotty creatures on the planet? No. There are plenty of grotty adults, too. People who don’t shower enough or don’t wear deodorant are the bane of my existence. Especially as an actor/musical theatre performer, you really spend a lot of time in a closed studio with a lot of people grouped really closely together doing vigorous physical activity. The same on film sets, which less activity is required, but the spaces are generally smaller.

  I can talk all I want about grotty kids because I, myself, was a grotty kid. Maybe not to the extent where I didn’t wash my hands, but I hated taking showers – although I know now with hindsight that this was probably because of my autism hating the change from dry to wet – I hated brushing my teeth – probably because of the really strong flavour of mint – and hated cleaning my room – because I really don’t like touching dirty things.

  I have learned to tolerate these uncomfortabilities because the thought of getting sick, cavities or dust buildup in my house far outweighs the pain of extreme mint flavour and getting actual freaking holes in my teeth.

  All this to say that now I care so much about my hygiene that you could probably eat food off of me and not get sick. But please don’t do that. That would make me feel very uncomfortable and I’d really rather die.