I was having lunch the other day, when suddenly a lady stepped up from behind and very politely, and calmly, said “Excuse me, sir. There is a cockroach on your shoe”.

Not moving a muscle from the waist down, I turned to look and indeed there it was, one of the largest cockroaches I have seen perched on the tip of my shoe. Interestingly, it moved quite slowly and from that I gather, it probably was on the last leg (no pun intended) of its life.

Heart pounding, nonetheless, gave my foot a shake and it toppled down, swaggering off in the opposite direction. Nonchalantly as I could, I turned to the kind lady and mumbled my thanks to which she smiled and walked off … probably wondering what I had stepped on to attract such a magnificent creature.

The event got me thinking about what I read some time ago. Something about your office desk has many, many, many times the amount of germs as compared to the office toilet.

Apparently, your keyboard is the Grand Mansion of germs where bits of dead skin and traces of sweat from your hands and fingers accumulate. Add that with the bits and pieces of your sandwich and warmness generated by the electronics and hey presto, the perfect hideaway for some pretty nasty organisms.

So, the theory goes that as compared to the standard toilet, your office desk has more germs. Interesting theory and I’m sure somebody actually went out of their way to get a research grant to get down and dirty with the facts.

It just evades me on whether it was specifically about harmful germs … although it beats me how any germ can be less than harmful. But then again, I’m a person of the arts which kind of means that I’m useless at understanding these things. A germ is a germ is a germ, I’d say.

Suppose that since office loo’s, at least, are cleaned by the ever so brave cleaners using such wonderful fragranced products, it must indeed be void of any harmful germs. As long as you don’t stick your hand, or any other part of your body, into the latrine itself, I suppose. No wonder there aren’t any cockroaches there.

But then again, I haven’t seen any cockroaches on my desk either. I doubt that the once a while spraying of some weird smelling chemicals on my keyboard has anything to do with it. But what do I know; I just sit here and type all day long. For all I know, they were spraying lubricant to stop the keys from squeaking.

Now, if even cockroaches can’t stand being on my keyboard – rubs eyes – that’s incontestable proof, at least to me, that my desk is more dangerous than the toilet. At least to it seems to be to cockroaches.

Since my regular eating place is now awash with cockroaches of all sizes, all trying to climb my shoes in an attempt to outdo their daredevil predecessor, and that eating at my desk is apparently as hazardous as perhaps actually letting one of those critters tango on, under and in-between the slices of my sandwich, I might as well take my lunch to the loo.

Now that my eyes are turning red, wonder why … they don’t get red when I rub them at the toilet sink … think I’ll just grab my sandwich that I bought from that same eatery, go wash my hands, plump my bottom down on the latrine and eat my meal.