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Recently, we’ve all been advised by our family, neighbors and coworkers to wash our hands more frequently. They say the key is to scrub with hot water and antibacterial soap, making sure to get the backs of your hands and your thumbs. 

The whole process should take you 20 seconds — that’s the length of two rounds of “Happy Birthday” or that favorite children’s tune “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” And if you’ve been following these instructions, and we know that you have, you’re probably pretty sick of those songs by now. 

So, we’ve come up with 9 alternative hand-washing monologues clocking in between 20 and 30 seconds a piece that we think are a more exciting way to stay germ-free.

 width=#1: Jane Austen’s opening lines of Pride and Prejudice

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”


#2: The Gettysburg Address width=

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” (Repeat 2x)

 width=#3: A passage about muggles from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty seven times in various disguises.”

#4: The Law & Order Intro width=

“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: The police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.” (Repeat 2x)

 width=#5: Wonder Woman’s Speech about humanity and love from Patty Jenkins’s 2017 film

“I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves – something no hero will ever defeat. I’ve touched the darkness that lives in between the light. Seen the worst of this world, and the best. Seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they’ll go to for love. Now I know. Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give … for the world I know can be. This is my mission, now. Forever.”

#6: The Opening of The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss width=

“The sun did not shine./ It was too wet to play./ So we sat in the house/ all that cold, cold, wet day./ I sat there with Sally./ We sat there, we two./ And I said, ‘How I wish/ I had something to do!’/ Too wet to go out/ and too cold to play ball./ So we sat in the house,/ we did nothing at all.” (Repeat 1X)

 width=#7: Buffy’s Empowering speech on Power in Buffy the Vampire Slayer S7E22 “Chosen”

“So here’s the part where you make a choice. What if you could have that power, now? In every generation, one Slayer is born, because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule … So I say we change the rule. I say my power … should be our power … From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power, can stand up, will stand up. Slayers… every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?”

#8: The beginning of Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans width=

“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines / Lived twelve little girls in two straight lines / In two straight lines they broke their bread / And brushed their teeth and went to bed. / They left the house at half past nine / In two straight lines in rain or shine- / The smallest one was Madeline.” (Repeat 1x)

 width=#9: Charles Dickens’s opening line of A Tale of Two Cities
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

#10: Lady Macbeth’s OCD hand-washing scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth width=

“Out, damned spot! out, I say!–One: two: why, / then, ’tis time to do’t.–Hell is murky!–Fie, my / lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we / fear who knows / it, when none can call our power to / account?–Yet who would have thought the old man / to have had so much blood in him. / … The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?– / What, will these hands ne’er be clean?–No more o’ / that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with / this starting.”

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