You knew. When I was a kid my mom always told me that money is the dirtiest thing we handle, to wash hands after.
First thing I do when I get home from the grocery store, is wash my hands, then put things away, then wash them again. Amazing how filthy hands get just buying groceries!
In my younger years I was a nanny for 3 children.
The mom would have me take the kids to playgrounds and places to get the germs of other kids.
She said when she was growing up her mother would boil her lunch money, pin it to her dress in a hanky, that the lunch person had to remove.
She said she got every cold that came along because she didn’t have any resistance from mom being so germ-a-phobic.
The several years I worked for them none of the kids ever got sick.
I do agree that money is very germ-ie.
In ‘69 worked at a bank in Hayward Ca. The first and last and multiple times a day we were advised to wash hands.
I have a friend who used to visit a wayward young man in prison. She was in her 50’s and worked with cash (accounting, banking). Whenever she went to visit the prison, she had to tell them she handled money, because the security screening detected drugs. It was residue on the money.....and this was not due to any illegal money laundering or anything. Money holds things....including drugs.