Do you use public drinking fountains?

[OakLeaf]

Well ... (and I have shared Holy Communion with people who probably had TB, although this was before today's multi-drug-resistant strains) ... you're not sucking water from the nozzle or lapping it out of the basin, you're drinking from the stream. Once it's flowed for a few seconds, it's rinsed off anything that might've been on the nozzle.

As far as the Americans thing ... that's just my impression. I don't know much about Japan, but my sister lived there for two years and never mentioned anything of the kind. The way people here go into a national tizzy over reusable shopping bags (heaven forbid we should actually WASH them, just throw them away and use plastic ones!!) or bartenders' garnishes, or whatever the bacteria-ridden common household item du jour happens to be. And never stop to think, if the checkout conveyor belts in grocery stores are really that repulsive, maybe they shouldn't be buying food there at all. In Italy, I've seen workers dip their pails into the same public fountain in which a mother rinsed her infant's pacifier. (but then again, in Italy, you do NOT touch fruit on display to choose the piece you want ... so maybe it's just a cultural thing of which germs people are afraid of?)