To be clear, your incessant hand washing has not gone unnoticed. You’ve been vigilant in keeping your hands clean, and you deserve recognition as a paradigm of good hygiene during these trying times.
However, we know this good habit has taken its toll. The combination of washing your hands sixteen times an hour and applying hand sanitizer in between has resulted in the complete loss of all your hand skin.
This is no cause for alarm. You can still live a happy, fulfilling life without hand skin. It might make you feel better to know there are many folks out there just like you, heading to the sink after so much as looking at a non-porous surface, for the first time able to see their hands without the epidermis covering. Up until now most of us were used to having hand skin almost all the time. Let’s be honest, hand skin was something we took for granted before the novel coronavirus decided birthday parties had to now be sad.
You can probably see your musculature, veins, and arteries. Maybe even some bone. You might think it looks a little gross, but you’re missing the upside. This is an exciting and educational way of seeing your hands! Now you can study the physical complexity of holding a pen, clenching your fist, or refreshing the Peapod website at 3 a.m. when new delivery slots become available. It’s like the Bodies exhibit, only it’s happening to you while you’re still alive and with less controversy.
If you’re looking to help, video chat with your friends who have kids so they can use your hands in a homeschool biology lesson.
There isn’t much use for hand skin anymore, anyway. Even if you still had it, what would you do with it? Impress a stranger with a firm handshake? Grab a rebound during a pickup basketball game? Be one of those people who touches your arm while they talk to you? We are in a post-hand skin society. Enjoy your newfound freedom. As a bonus, you’ll save money on fancy moisturizer.
You might fear others will laugh at your missing hand skin. This is the furthest thing from peoples’ minds right now. From six feet away you can hardly tell whether someone has hand skin or not. They are laser-focused on watching caseload numbers on TV increase like a sadistic telethon, hoarding anything substitutable for toilet paper and wiping down bread with Clorox wipes. If you can’t stand the site of your missing hand skin, you can put on a pair of gloves. Oven mitts work well, too, and can be useful in a new trend sweeping the country: cooking.
You might still have a lot of questions about not having hand skin. Do I still have to wash my hands? Can I touch my face again? Should I show my mother when she inevitably calls me on Facebook Messenger? Yes, no, and definitely not. Those are the answers and are non-negotiable.
Soon you will enjoy not having hand skin. You’ll like how a breeze feels when you stick your hands out the window because you’re afraid if you go outside your talkative neighbor will come within five-and-a-half feet of you. You’ll decide not to stop there. Why not wash off your arm skin next? You could recreate that scene from Terminator 2 when Arnold cuts his arm skin off to prove to Miles Dyson that he’s from the future. That would look pretty sick.
Please keep in mind that your hand skin will grow back. There will come a time when the pandemic has passed. You may be excited and ask yourself, “What will I do with this regrown hand skin?” You will shake hands and grab subway poles and wonder, “Was this all I did with my life? Was my hand skin the reason I settled?” You will continue cooking and pull the skin off raw chicken with envy, craving a life again bereft of hand skin. You will wash your hands with gusto, again and again and again until your hand skin is once again no more.
You will go out into the world unafraid, for you no longer need hand skin.
You will find yourself regrown.