Twenty-five seconds: Meaningless to some, a lifetime for others.
Coronavirus has rattled the foundations of the world. Mass hysteria has begun to settle in like a stray cat on your front porch. Spring break trips are being cancelled. People are self-quarantining. My mom keeps calling me.
I feel like some men assume coronavirus is a liberal conspiracy designed to get them to wash their hands after they use the bathroom. Please, I implore you, wash your damn hands.
Twenty-five seconds. Five seconds for turning on the water and 20 seconds to annihilate the germs on your grubby little mitts.
There have been a litany of columns about how singing “Happy Birthday” while washing hands is boring. CNN, the Los Angeles Times and – of course – Buzzfeed have all hopped on the trend. Well, in the spirit of mass hysteria and panic, I’m going to hop on the bandwagon.
So, it’s time to shake off those germs. There are really only three songs you should be washing your hands to. “Shake It” by Metro Station, “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift and “Shake” by Jesse McCartney.
“Shake It” by Metro Station is a terrifying song disguised as a summery bop. The song is about Mitchell Musso’s brother breaking into a woman’s house to dance. At least, that was my interpretation in 2007. Now, I realize that “And I was thinking of places that I could hide” rasped sinisterly is inherently off-putting.
The shaking it in the song may also refer to something explicit, but in our case we’re going to assume that we’re shaking off germs and that “Now if she touches like this, will you touch her right back?” refers to some sort of psychological warfare via transference of germs.
“Shake It Off” is more standard fare. Taylor Swift sings about shaking off hate. The players and haters are germs, attacking us, dragging us into the muck of an epidemic. We must shake them off, and the only way to do that is to wash our hands and sing “Shake It Off” to ourselves like some sort of lunatic.
Finally, we have “Shake” by Jesse McCartney, a man who’s career faded faster than the coronavirus probably will. I’m aware people might not remember the song, but the chorus is extremely catchy and a lot of the lyrics came rushing back into my head just like people are rushing into their homes to avoid crowds with cacophonous coughs.
Jesse McCartney takes the form of a hand sanitizer dealer on the chorus, singing “Shorty hitting me up, says she wanna re-up. She knows I got the best in town.” Unbelievable how Jesse McCartney was able to predict coronavirus in 2010. To further the coronavirus connection, Jesse becomes hand sanitizer incarnate and croons: “Cause when she get the shivers, she’ll know that I deliver.” Uncanny.
Three new choruses to add to the ever-growing list. Use them wisely, and most importantly, stay healthy.
