Disclaimer: I usually wash my hands.

Those that don’t wash their hands touch the door handle leaving the restroom. They also likely touch the main door handle leaving the store. If you wash your hands, aren’t you undoing it immediately?

I thought about this a lot at my last office I worked at. We had a wide variety of washers, non-washers, religious who also washed their feet (over and under socks), and people who washed and used the paper towel to open the bathroom door but subsequently opened the next door bare handed, and the germophobe who never touched any surface barehanded.

There’s no good answer. Though, metal is a pretty bad surface for germs to live on if that helps. My recommendation is to just wash your hands and then try not to think about the rest.

I did it by promising myself I’d laugh about it later, and then hold it in and maintain a straight face.

Works pretty well, but you do end up getting funny looks when you’re giggling to yourself out of nowhere when you think back about it.

Project Hail Mary fits the bill. Though it’s popular enough you’ve likely already read it.