Sam Venable Published 6:00 a.m. ET March 11, 2020

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I come to you today in my role as executive director of the PGA (Prudish Germaphobes of America).

With full copycat malice aforethought, I shamelessly hijack the tune of a jukebox hit by Connie Francis: Whos Sorry Now?

Whos washing now? Please take a bow!

Whose hands are sterile before eating chow?

Whos clean anew, like morning dew?

Just like I was when chided by you.

Yet I do commend; youve joined the trend.

Youre staying spotless somehow.

With soap and spray, you dont delay.

Im glad that youre washing now.

Sam Venable, KNS columnist.(Photo: NEWS SENTINEL FILE)

OK, enough nonsense. I dont mean to make light of the coronavirus outbreak rapidly circling the globe.

Unlike a certain resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. or the first tee at Mar-a-Lago, as the case may more accurately be my hunch says weve only just begun to feel the full wrath of this pestilence.

Gulp. Heaven help us. Literally.

But just as theres nobody more obnoxious than a born-again nonsmoker (been there, done that, too), rest assured we reformed dirtbags preach the same insufferable brand of told-you-so.

Not unwashed dirtbags like Pig-Pen, the cartoon character. I speak more on the microbial level.

For perhaps the first three decades of my existence, I gave little thought to the intricacies of germ warfare.

A dropped morsel of food? The five-second rule applies.

Throat parched on a mountain hike, hunt or fishing trip? Any cold, babbling stream should be clean enough.

That kind of germ warfare.

Then I got disease religion. It was the pathogenic equivalent of Sauls conversion on the road to Damascus.

Except Saul was a quick study.

It took not one, but two, emergency hospitalizations the second in isolation until the particular cootie could be identified for me to see the light.

Ever since, theres never been such a hand-washing, Purell-squirting, water-carrying, cough-and-sneeze avoiding, paper towel door-opening zealot than yours truly. Back when I was a full-time staffer at the News Sentinel, colleagues often teased about my clean-freak coffee pot practices.

Will devotion to disinfectants protect against the coronavirus? Who knows?

News about this disease changes by the hour. Questions and conspiracy theories abound. Vaccine research continues 24/7. Maybe it wont be as bad as predicted. Or maybe were in line for a sure-nuff pandemic.

At least I aint going down without a suds-and-scrubbing fight.

Sam Venables column appears every Sunday. Contact him at sam.venable@outlook.com.

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We clean freaks will stand and scrub together | Sam Venable - Knoxville News Sentinel