After growing up in a house of men, I thought I knew everything about them. They’re hairier. They don’t like it when you paint their nails. They get “weird” when you start crying. They’ll watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians with you, but they don’t really like it when you tell people about it. But as it turns out, I’m learning new things about men all the time.

Like belly button lint! Up until a few weeks ago, I thought “belly button lint” was a myth or a cute phrase, like “dust bunnies.” As it turns out, men actually get lint in their belly buttons from their hair on their stomachs rubbing against the fabric of their shirts. While that fact was merely amusing and a little amazing, I also found out something disgusting: men don’t wash their hands when they go the bathroom.

You probably already knew this, but I didn’t, and here’s why: the men I grew up with, and the male friends I’ve gravitated towards as a result of that upbringing, have never really been typical “guys’ guys.” I mean, yes, there is still farting (oh, the farting!) but most of the men in my life are sometimes mistakenly assumed to be gay. That’s basically the biggest compliment a stranger can give you, in my opinion. If some asshole has the audacity to openly question something as personal as your sexuality, what they’re really saying is, “You’re too nice, interesting, well-dressed and clean to be straight.” So yeah. All the men I knew always washed their hands after going to the bathroom. You know why? Because it is the bathroom. The place with human excrement!

I didn’t realize dudes not washing their hands was normal until I got a promotion at work and moved into my own cube near the men’s restroom. While I can’t see the doors, I can hear the toilet flushing and the opening/closing of doors. After a few days back there, a realization slowly trickled into my mind. I was hearing a urinal flush directly before the door opened. Were these men not washing their hands?

This instantly brought out the journalist in me and I began polling people I know. “Some people wash their hands!” Papa W. said indignantly, which only furthered my belief that the men in my family are basically saints. Further research confirmed my suspicions: it’s totally normal for men to not wash their hands after using the restroom.

Let’s go over why this is disgusting. You touch your dick in the bathroom. You put your hands on it! And then you don’t wash those hands! You touch all the various handles and knobs that have been touched by dirty, diseased, unwashed hands and then you come out and come into the meeting and shake my hand with your dick hand! This is borderline sexual harassment. I did not ask to touch your penis, gentlemen, and frankly if I did we would be in a far different setting than the conference room. Why don’t you guys all just rub your dicks together instead of shaking hands? Because that is basically what you’re doing! How about I just excuse myself for the first few minutes of the meeting, you guys can spread all of your disgusting genital germs around, and then I can come back in later after that display of manliness is over?

It should also be noted that I’m no prude with a cleaner-than-thou attitude. I mean, I eat things off the floor. Not I’ve eaten things off the floor; it’s like a regular thing with me, not an isolated incident that happened once or twice in the past. I am not so clean, but at least I know when it’s appropriate to lather up, and that’s anytime I’ve urinated.

I love this Michael Showalter joke, but I DO NOT AGREE. You WILL get your hands dirty by touching your penis, sir! YOU WILL.