To be grossed out by this?

[PrimatePantaloons]

On a family day out buying hot drinks/ snacks from a van. I’d got my drinks/ snacks already but spotted the woman who had just served me pluck a hair out of her face with her fingers nails, look at it and then flick it off in a random direction…

I am very overly sensitive to this sort of stuff/ borderline obsessive but this is mainstream gross isn’t it?

I see this sort of stuff all the time and don’t get stuff for myself when out and about, but sometimes I wonder what would happen if I asked people to wash their hands after I’ve seen them doing something like this?

The other day in Costa I saw a guy scratch the inside of his ear with his little finger and then put a lid on someone’s take away coffee without washing his hands? That’s gross too right?

I feel like my perspective is skewed because of my anxiety about this type of thing, which I am having therapy for. As part of this I’m trying to recalibrate what is/ is not acceptable.

The woman from today didn’t even try and hide it… she was chatting to the next customer in the queue whilst admiring this chin hair she had just pulled out and then literally just flicked it off. It could have landed anywhere. That is gross, yes?

I definitely did some internal wrenching for a good while afterwards. Then I decided to post on here to “get it out” and stop thinking about it… I mask a lot of the time for the sake of my kids. It is exhausting. I’m tired.

Wrenching, lol. You know what I mean!

I think she amazed herself to be honest.

I miss covid precautions so much it’s untrue. I feel like people have got worse since they were all relaxed, like they’re almost rebelling against the restrictions…

I’m aware that we’re laden with bacteria. We need our bacteria to survive. The question was why is that a concern for the OP.

"I absolutely bat all of my eyelids at all of these things… in fact I wish I had more eyelids so that I could bat all of those as well."

Lol. I like you OP 😆 and I'm with you on all of it! It makes me feel so sick thinking of this type of thing.

I also suffer from issues around anxiety but I honestly don't feel like these are unreasonable things to have a problem with!

All these things sound grim and very unappetising when serving foodstuffs.

I'm more interested in how the woman actually managed to pull a chin hair out with her fingers. Anytime I've found a random chin hair I've been stuck with it until I managed to get home to my tweezers! In spite of frantic trying (even using a mirror) my fingernails have never served as tweezers....

Going out for tea with friends tomorrow so I’ll have to get pissed and sit in the corner and keep my eyes closed so I can eat the food. Some people are grim 🤢

🤢 You've just reminded me of something similar that happened to me!! A trip to Germany in my late teens with my 2 sisters and the long hair I pulled out was half black and half grey. I look around and can see an angry looking woman bashing around the kitchen with dyed black hair and massive grey roots 😅😭
I didn't say anything though as the woman looked pretty terrifying, I just pushed the food around my plate until my sisters were ready to leave.
That feeling of pulling a hair out of your food is just...I can't find the words but nooooooo yuck!!

I ordered a drink in my local Spoons and asked for it with no ice.

It was taking ages to arrive so was watching the guy behind the bar from our table to see if he looked like he was doing ours yet.

I watched him pour a Diet Coke but he then realised it was supposed to be no ice and he'd put ice in - so he poured the glass of coke through his fingers into another glass, so the ice was left in his hand, and then tried to serve me the coke. He was very perplexed when I said I'd just seen what he'd done and asked for a new one - which I also watched him make to make sure he didn't spit in it because I'd said something!!

What made it worse was that I knew his hands weren't clean because prior to making our drinks he'd been clearing glasses and wiping tables all around the pub.

I once walked out of a Tesco metro because the guy on the till sneezed Welty into his open hands and then started handling my purchases. I told him he was disgusting. Then there was the chap in the local chippy he was wiping his nose on his hands and shovelling chips with the unwashed hands. Gross.

It really is - my mum used to eat those “pink & white” mallow things about 10 years ago and once found a hair in the middle of the mallow. 🤢 I can’t even look at them in the supermarket without feeling sick after she told me that.

YANBU

Just a thought given we are all amazed at this persons ability to tweeze a hair with her fingers, was it definitely a hair, it could have been the head off a spot or something?? 🤣🤣 Sorry 🤢

So, for clarity, and at the risk of me bringing up my lunch, it was definitely hair. She had really long (natural) finger nails and got it between two of them - index finger & thumb. There was also a flake of skin attached to the end of it after she had pulled it out. She sort of held it up to admire it for a second, and then flicked it away with her thumb. It was quite long.

Wow I feel sick. 🤢 😂

Yep, gross. I bought a brownie from a stall at a local fair; the woman licked her fingers to open the paper bag and then I also noticed her absolutely filthy nails (no gloves). It all happened so fast that she handed me the cake and I felt obliged to pay but it went straight in the bin. I did report it to the organisers and suggested the business was not invited back to the next fair.

Today, on the Tube the young woman next to me was making a big meal of picking her nose and eating it. When she started on her other nostril I heard myself say politely "Will you please stop doing that?" She said "What am I doing?" I said "Picking your nose". She stopped. She had earphones on and her phone and was totally oblivious to the others in the carriage . I felt sick. No doubt someone on here will say I was dreadful.

A man who was serving behind a counter in a coffee shop kept coughing into his hand and then went to make me a pot of tea. I politely pointed out he'd coughed multiple times into his hand and asked him to wash them. He took it well and later came over and apologised and we had a good conversation about other things. I wasn't looking for an apology but I was grateful he'd taken my request gracefully. You'd have thought after covid that people would be more aware of how to be hygienic, particularly when in a job serving others.

I agree with you OP.

This post is making me want to touch my face, hair, chin, ears like crazy

yes, it's gross. but there's a whole load of gross stuff going on in food prep that you don't see, and it's mostly harmless. just offputting.
I just don't let it bother me too much. there's always going to be people scratching and picking at themselves, or not washing their hands well, and so on. but for the most part, it's out of sight, out of mind.
it's going to be going on in nice eateries too, not just fast food vans.

it always annoys me when on come dine with me, the narrator says things like "excuse fingers" when someone is touching the food they're preparing, as if they are wearing gloves to prepare food in restaurants. they're not. do you think Gordon Ramsey is wearing gloves when he handles the food? not being expensive doesn't make it more unpleasant when the staff touch it.

I'm quite relaxed about that sort of thing though. I hope people do their best to be hygienic. but these things are going to happen at least occasionally.

I'm the sort of person who, if I find a single hair in my food, I'll just pull it out of my mouth and put it on table. no, it's not pleasant, but it's hard to prevent completely. and it's just hair. if there are several, I'd mention it. just the odd one, no biggie. these things happen. if it was a fingernail or a plaster or something, I'd definitely raise the issue. but something like that is just one of those things that happens.

I'm probably less squeamish than most, and if you SEE it, yes it's offputting. but there's probably loads of similar stuff going on we never see, and it's not hurting us

yeah, despite my post above, that WOULD bother me. licking your fingers to handle paper has always bothered me though. even as a small child that didn't even know about potential contamination risks.
a teacher at primary school would do that to turn pages, and it always bothered me a lot. if it was just the nails, I'd probably let it slide, but not the finger licking and paper

I'm sure that they're required to change gloves. or have someone else handling money, at the end of the counter to the ones making the sandwich, when it's busier.
I've not seen this happening. they do vary in how much they enforce certain rules (and how generous or stingy they are with toppings, one near us is TERRIBLE. I had onions and peppers on mine, and it was two half onion rings, broken up, and two bits of pepper broken up. the others are MUCH less stingy)
but, I haven't seen any handle cash with the gloves still on, and I haven't seen anyone leave them on afterwards.
they AREN'T all great at avoiding touching the veg after the meat. some are better at that than others. but they definitely seem to have rules in place about when to change gloves, and some enforce it better than others

when I was a dental nurse, in training, they sprayed our hands, and showed us under UV light where they were glowing. then we had to go and wash our hands, and put them back under the light to see what we'd missed.
it really made you aware of the areas that you need to make sure of washing, that are easily left contaminated, even after what seems like a thorough hand wash.

Even when people have washed their hands, they often don't do it properly. Briefly introducing your hands to a bit of soap and water does not do the job!