Travel Tales, Part II

You may recall back in July I wrote a post called Travel Tales. It chronicled a few incidents I observed while on the road. This past week, while I was in San Francisco I witnessed another episode that I thought was worth of a fresh Travel Tales follow up installment. I should start off with the admission reminder that I am somewhat of a germ-o-phobe. That being said here is the scene: I'm at SFO airport, waiting for my flight home. I'm at the gate area, relaxing with my Wall Street Journal newspaper when a woman sits down in the open seat next to me. She has a white bag with some food she had just purchased. As she settle into her seat, she pulls out a white carton of hot soup, and a piece of French baguette. All of a sudden, the whole piece of bread falls out of her hand and onto the floor. As it was sudden movement, naturally it caught my eye. She was still fiddling with her things and there the piece of bread sat on the filthy airport carpet at our feet. And then, the UNTHINKABLE occurred. She reached down, picked up the piece of bread and yes, you guessed it- she proceeded to EAT THE BREAD that had been on the FILTHY AIRPORT CARPET. I discreetly pulled out my camera and took these photos moments after. The top left is her hand, dipping the scum-laden, bacteria covered piece of bread into her soup.

above: The circle indicates where the piece of bread landed on the airport carpet. As if this were not enough, at one point, her plastic spoon fell onto the floor as she was eating. So keep in mind, the spoon was wet with soup. And yes, once again she reached down, picked up the spoon from the airport carpet and continued using it. SHE DIDN'T EVEN WIPE OFF THE SPOON. So there must have been carpet fibers, dust or worse- fecal matter or something like that on her spoon. God only KNOWS what that spoon picked up. Ugh, so utterly disgusting. While slurping her soup, the woman proceeded to strike up a conversation with me, so I used the opportunity to snap those photos. I pretended I was "experimenting" with my camera, trying to shoot a photo of a plane on the tarmac. That allowed me to get the photo of her hand with the bread and the soup. Oh it was so gross. It reminded me once again, how disgusting people can be. Now- all that being said, I should state that I fully understand that there are people in far worse situations, hungry, destitute and desperate who do not have food to eat. I have full sympathy for such people and would never judge someone in that situation eating and not wasting something just because it had fallen on the floor. But I differentiate between someone in that situation compared to this business woman who should have better judgement. So tell me, am I crazy about this? If your piece of French bread and soupy spoon both fell on the floor at the airport, would you eat the bread and use the spoon? Leave a comment, I'm curious. Thank you for stopping by.

-Rick Rockhill