George Carlin, the famous comedian, used to joke about how he would eat anything that fell on the floor without washing it off first. He never got sick, he said, because he was exposed to everything and his body was able to handle it. He joked about germs and our obsession with them, and ultimately it wasn’t bad bacteria that did him in, but heart failure.
I’m a subscriber to Carlin’s theory about eating what you drop, because I’d starve if I didn’t. Food items repeatedly fall off the counter, get knocked from the kitchen table, or stick to fingers, then flip onto the floor. More seem to hit the ground first than go in my mouth.
That’s due to clumsiness, inattention and having hands and arms that don’t seem to maneuver as fluidly as they did 15 years ago. The result is chopped lettuce, vitamins, radish slices, M&M’s, bread bits and pieces of chicken staring back at me, and asking, “Are you going to pick me up and put me in your mouth, or are you going to listen to all the paranoia that says you’re going to get sick and die if you eat something off the floor?”
I ignore the paranoia and dive in. I don’t want to starve.
Dropping food near your feet is an art form and leads to interesting journeys. Cookies, for example, like to roll 5-10 feet away and find some cranny under a desk near piles of congealed dog hair. Should you eat the Oreo then? I won’t tell you want I do.
It’s extremely rare that I get sick. That could be that I’m fortunate or that perhaps Carlin’s theory is correct about exposure.
You can wash your hands 49 times a day like I would have to do every time something had to be scraped off the floor. You can also choose to throw a lot of food away. If it touches anything you deem dirty, classify it as dangerous, and toss it in the garbage. That gets expensive. These techniques keep the human hand and mouth separate from the “dirty” or “contaminated” morsels.
There are also ways to deal with clumsiness. Move slower. Think before you act. Pay attention to your surroundings. Don’t try to do two or three things at once. Concentrate on the task at hand.
Even when I concentrate on those tips, food continues to launch from everywhere and bound across our wood kitchen flooring. You think raisins would just pop into your mouth when you attempt to throw them in? Of course not.
No, one sticks to your finger while the others go down the hatch, then it slowly peels off and drops. You look down and say to yourself, “One raisin, is it worth it?” Then I bend over and pick it up. I also pick up pennies.
If you use money, you are handling the cash in much the same way as food. Think about all the moving around cash does – you buy something, hand over money to the cashier, she counts change for you, those coins have been exchanged 997 times over the past year alone from consumer to store vendor. It’s best not to think about these things if you worry about germs.
Because then you’ll become obsessed with not only safe food and clean hands, but also using money. You’ll start wondering if you should go live inside a plastic dome that’s protected from anything bad.
We can’t do this, and shouldn’t. We’ve all got to figure out for ourselves what we’re willing to pick up off the ground. Then you can throw it away. Or into your mouth.
I’m a subscriber to Carlin’s theory about eating what you drop, because I’d starve if I didn’t. Food items repeatedly fall off the counter, get knocked from the kitchen table, or stick to fingers, then flip onto the floor. More seem to hit the ground first than go in my mouth.
That’s due to clumsiness, inattention and having hands and arms that don’t seem to maneuver as fluidly as they did 15 years ago. The result is chopped lettuce, vitamins, radish slices, M&M’s, bread bits and pieces of chicken staring back at me, and asking, “Are you going to pick me up and put me in your mouth, or are you going to listen to all the paranoia that says you’re going to get sick and die if you eat something off the floor?”
I ignore the paranoia and dive in. I don’t want to starve.
Dropping food near your feet is an art form and leads to interesting journeys. Cookies, for example, like to roll 5-10 feet away and find some cranny under a desk near piles of congealed dog hair. Should you eat the Oreo then? I won’t tell you want I do.
It’s extremely rare that I get sick. That could be that I’m fortunate or that perhaps Carlin’s theory is correct about exposure.
You can wash your hands 49 times a day like I would have to do every time something had to be scraped off the floor. You can also choose to throw a lot of food away. If it touches anything you deem dirty, classify it as dangerous, and toss it in the garbage. That gets expensive. These techniques keep the human hand and mouth separate from the “dirty” or “contaminated” morsels.
There are also ways to deal with clumsiness. Move slower. Think before you act. Pay attention to your surroundings. Don’t try to do two or three things at once. Concentrate on the task at hand.
Even when I concentrate on those tips, food continues to launch from everywhere and bound across our wood kitchen flooring. You think raisins would just pop into your mouth when you attempt to throw them in? Of course not.
No, one sticks to your finger while the others go down the hatch, then it slowly peels off and drops. You look down and say to yourself, “One raisin, is it worth it?” Then I bend over and pick it up. I also pick up pennies.
If you use money, you are handling the cash in much the same way as food. Think about all the moving around cash does – you buy something, hand over money to the cashier, she counts change for you, those coins have been exchanged 997 times over the past year alone from consumer to store vendor. It’s best not to think about these things if you worry about germs.
Because then you’ll become obsessed with not only safe food and clean hands, but also using money. You’ll start wondering if you should go live inside a plastic dome that’s protected from anything bad.
We can’t do this, and shouldn’t. We’ve all got to figure out for ourselves what we’re willing to pick up off the ground. Then you can throw it away. Or into your mouth.