Would you like saliva with that?

I don't mean to make it look like my return to blogging is going to be a daily thing. I like to write this blog when the need arises, and it just so happens that the need is arising just one solitary day after I went charging back into the waters here.

I will try to be brief about this, but someone really disgusted me today. I mean really, totally, completely, horribly. And I cannot get past it right now, so I guess the best thing is to tell you and let you get disgusted, for misery certainly loves company, and I think the same thing goes for being disgusted. If that makes sense at all. So we will embark on a little disgust together.

There is a small supermarket not far from my house. I feel bad for people who work in supermarkets as cashiers. I did it for six years when I was a young man and was trying to launch what sort of passes for a "career" as a journalist. It is a horrible job.

But this woman at the market did something today that I consider repulsive. I have seen other cashiers do it, too....she is not alone in this repugnant habit, and somehow it has to be stopped.

As you know, most markets insist on putting your groceries in crappy plastic bags that split open like a cheap pair of pants after you visit a Chinese buffet. And I guess these bags tend to stick together, or are hard to get apart or something, and you will occasionally see cashiers actually lick their fingers to get the bags apart.

That's right. They produce a little bit of spittle, put their hand to their mouth like Gaylord Perry in his prime, and then pick up the groceries to put them in the bag, disseminating (perhaps an unfortunate word here) saliva on the very food that you will be eating. How nauseating is that? Why don't they just french-kiss your green peppers, or suck on the peaches a little bit before they put them in the bag? Or how about depositing a phalanx of your personal germs and phlegm on the package of hamburger, which was probably wrapped too loosely by some guy in the meat room who was half asleep or half hung over or whatever? You can almost imagine all those filthy personal germs just strolling right on top of the meat and having a real bloody picnic as they await the chance to roll down your throat and strangle the life out of your digestive system?

Please. If you are a grocery cashier, or some horrible twist of fate makes you one someday, keep your hands out of your mouth while dealing with other people's food.

The rest of us thank you for your salivary discretion.