Holding Hands for Grace

Reader, I've got something that has been bothering me for the past 21 years and I'm quite sure that it will be an ongoing struggle for me for the rest of my life.

Holding hands for Grace.

I know that holding hands during prayer to God symbolizes connecting with our family while thanking God for the food He provided for us. I understand that. I support that way of thinking. I mean, I get it.

But...it's icky.

Reader, the last thing I want to do during cold and flu season and before I eat my meal is hold my hands with two other clammy hands. We're always taught to wash our hands before dinner. This is a good rule of thumb to go by, but why ruin those freshly-cleaned-with-liquid-soap hands and conjoin them with someone who just coughed into theirs? And...how do you get out of a situation like that?

Do I try honesty?

 "Let's join hands and pray."
"Um, no. Seriously, Linda? Coughing into your hand and then taking mine right before dinner? Do you think that's fooling anyone? Your germs + my hand = ruined dinner. Please cough into your elbow next time, you walking, talking germ donor. Nasty."

Hmm. Scratch that.

Do I lie?

"Let's join hands and pray."
"NO! You see, um, my hands hold this terrible disease. Anyone who touches them has a 23% chance of developing warts in unwanted places. Seriously. You don't mess with warts."

Not thinking God would like that either.

I've really thought this through, readers, and I have to say I have not yet come up with any sort of solution to this problem.

• Limiting yourself to just utensils might make you seem slightly obsessive if you're eating sandwiches.

• I don't think you can get any more obvious than whipping out the strongly scented hand sanitizer at the dinner table.
• Trusting that God really will bless this germ-infested food to your body takes some serious faith that I'm still trying to develop.
• And running to the bathroom after every prayer is unnatural and quite frankly just bizarre.
  

Honestly, readers, I don't mean to be rude to the people who want to hold my hand. I really don't. I'm just trying to balance my spirituality with my physical phobias and for some reason can't seem to make the two cooperate. 

Tomorrow right before dinner I'm going to wear two hand buzzers and see if they ever try to get me to touch them again. Will this cause an uproar? Probably. Permanent solution? I'm definitely thinkin'.