Nothing Carries More Germs Than Money

“This is abysmal,” Doug sighed, staring out at the rainy city below him. Having arrived at JFK a soggy hour and a half ago, he had no idea how long the skies had been pouring for, but he was nonetheless severely annoyed by the onslaught. The hard driving water droplets slammed against the windowed walls of his 54th floor hotel room with a muffled beat, protecting him from the harsh weather outside, but raising a specter of doubt in his mind about how long the windows could hold out.

When he’d checked in, some kind of magical, once-in-a-lifetime snafu had led to the ultimate room upgrade. Walking through the door of the towering glass duplex suite, he thought of the epic Caesar’s Palace suite in Rain Man. He’d always wanted to stay in that room, and now he was. Relatively speaking. His middle school girlfriend once told him he looked like Tom Cruise. To which his best friend Rodrigo had responded, “More like Tom Arnold.”

He was starving, but afraid to order anything from room service, knowing he couldn’t afford it. The snafu would only take him so far. He walked over to his bag, fished out an Oats & Honey granola bar and took a bite. Having snacks on hand was something his mother had ingrained in him, that and hand washing. As a result, Doug was borderline obsessive compulsive about hand washing. He thought about washing his hands now, but remembered he’d washed them after tipping the bellhop five dollars twenty minutes ago. Nothing carries more germs than money. Should he have tipped ten in a place like this?

Finished with the granola bar, he folded the wrapper in half three times and set it on the table.