Top 9 Grossest Things I've Touched

     Today, and I felt a lumpy plastic bag right before getting out of work, I realized there are many things I've been unfortunate enough to have touched while at work or leaving work. I've decided to take a little breather from the public acts of audacity to bring you a special presentation of randomness! And without further ado, starting the countdown was what I squished between my fingers in the last few minutes of work today:

9) Dog Poo

• State Parks in my state have a carry-in carry out policy. The trash you bring in is what you take. People get irate when they go trash picking and then come to me and ask me to throw it away, saying that they didn't bring it in, that they were doing me a favor by collecting it off the rocks. It's not my job to get the trash off the rocks. Frankly, the people of this particular town are very environmentally conscious, so I don't know why there's that much trash in the first place, or why they would balk at making their place more clean. Second of all, the park I work at is pretty understaffed. There are 2-3 people who have to go around cleaning and maintaining two entire parks, so there will definitely be trash left over. 
• This was a big intro because people don't realize that their dog's manure is technically "carry-in", and there's no way I want to smell their dogs' feces in the private garbage all day long. 
• The bag that was left for me was not warm, thank goodness, but the horrifying revelation of squishing it and picturing Fido squeezing one out really got my stomach going in loops. Not a happy end of the day.

It was an accident, I swear.
Cuteness from: Dog University

8) Month Old Ham

• While cleaning the refrigerated sandwich station at your local Coffee-Donut Shop, I saw the bottom was filled entirely with slimy off-yellow fluid. I was concerned immediately since God knows how long it'd been since the squishiness had been mopped up. As I knelt wrist-deep in sludge, I noticed a plastic bin we usually keep our food in, and unearthed it. Inside was perfectly portioned slices of ham that would have originally expired a month earlier. This ham, however, lived under the other bins of "edible" food, collecting mold and relinquishing moisture, so it resembled the consistency of the pig ears I would give my dog. Except, I would never give this to my dog. To unruly customers, maybe. 
• In all seriousness, I was so afraid of this tainted meat that I threw the entire plastic bin and the ham into the trash. No amount of soap and suds would erase the atrocities from the plastic. The ham rates slightly higher on the scale of grossness just because at one point, it had been intended for human consumption, and I honestly have no idea how much longer it would have stayed down there.  

7) Mangled, Drooled on Leftover Breakfast Food and Soiled Napkins

• Working in breakfast places can be rewarding, but most of the time, it's awful. I worked in a breakfast place for mere months and couldn't wait to be free of it. I was a busser. I got to clean up all the tables once the kids were done grinding their scrambled eggs and bacon into the carpet. I wouldn't have minded so much if people would have let me be what I should have been: messy. 
• The tables have to be cleared quickly so the waitress/waiter can have as many tables (aka as many tips) as possible, so I used to really throw myself into the work, not stopping until my buss-bucket was so full it was a real physical effort to lug it back to the kitchen. This makes me sweaty. The next time you lift 25 pounds every 4 minutes for 8 hours, let me know how you feel. 
• Tables are loaded with all sorts of goodies like food that has missed people's mouths, or in unfortunate cases, had once entered their mouth and was then either accidentally dropped or intentionally spit from their mouth. Plus the kids just love to play with all the creamers and sugar packets, so you have to deconstruct about 30 pyramids of non-dairy creamers per day. Wet napkins and wadded up straw wrappers set off my nausea just because it's kinda squishy (lots more squishy things in the countdown to come!)
• I think knowing that most of the items I touched were around someone's mouth is what made this pretty gross. People I don't know. Mouths that have been on places I don't want to know. 

6) Horseshoe Crab Poop

• By far, THE most disgusting feces of anything I've had the displeasure of touching thus far is from our friend, the Horseshoe crab. Being millions of years old and such, I guess I should show her and her poop some respect.
• So what does horseshoe crab defecation look like? Picture dryer lint. Now picture it coated in an odd, squishy, clear, viscous gelatin that has the tendency to stick to everything and anything, but somehow stays together long enough to float around like a slimy ghost. 
• What's the consistency of horseshoe crab defecation? Picture the meanest, biggest, worst wad of snot rocket that you can remember from the bullies in elementary school. 
• My coworker, the owner of the delightful cat that has his own blog, Ask Tazi!, can attest to the grossness of this prehistoric animal. 
• Considered higher on the grossness list because I have to touch it repeatedly. Sometimes multiple times per day.

5) Garbage Consisting of Diapers, Cigarettes, Old Food, and Sanitary Items

• As my finger rips through the flimsy trashbag that my numbnuts coworker decided to fill to the brim with heavy objects, I notice a slender object covered in blood. The fear of contracting Hepatitis hits me before the disgust. As I fling the 40 pound bag of garbage that, thankfully, tears mid-air and sprays its filthy contents everywhere, I can't help but to wonder why it would be okay to throw away a used tampon in the garbage can of a coffee shop. Those little boxes near the toilets in most public bathrooms? Yeah. They have a very important purpose. 
• We are a wasteful society, and getting rid of that waste is not a happy job. I've tried wearing gloves, but it's more of a hassle as I can't grip the massive bag well enough to heave it into the giant garbage receptacle. The bags are so heavy, I feel my bag muscles strain like a flimsy swing-set holding a fat kid who's swinging too high for the metal beams to handle. No? Aww c'mon, surely you remember the days when you finally realized you couldn't use the swingset anymore because the whole thing would lift right out of the ground. 
• Anyhoo, still warm coffee grinds, cigarettes and cigarette ashes, still full coffees and beverages that magically overturn and splash only when I pick them up, week old diapers (baby and adult), food containers from places besides the coffee shop, and all sorts of crap that inevitably ends up all over me, or on the ground so I have to then scoop it into the trash, makes this a high contender for something I can't stand.

4) Dying Seagull

• Used tampons are a stationary, deadly predator. A giant winged rat known as a seagull is a highly mobile, surprisingly large cause of concern if it's scared and ready to bite. Plus fears of any sort of avian illnesses or bacteria, and my fear of birds as modern-day Raptors:

Top: Predatory Bird, Below: Raptor. 

• So, at work fairly recently, a woman told me there was an injured seagull on the rocks and that I should probably do something about it, so I went down and...I was a completely wuss! I was so terrified that this two and a half foot long bird was going to leap up and slash at me with her beak. But she stayed so still that I thought she had already died. Luckily, she seemed to be okay, and the woman transported her to a local wildlife rehab center that's attached to the vet clinic. I've taken ducks and birds there before, and they were so kind and helpful. Still...not a fan of birds.
  
  [Photo Credits: Burdur.com and Doggys Webosaurs Blog, respectively] 

3) Rotting Fish

• Feeding the fish at work is an awesome experience, and quite honestly, seeing them eat makes me happy because it means I'm doing something right. However, it's also a huge source of my daily nausea. The freezer that contains the delectable delights for our fish is the very same fridge/freezer combo that houses our very own food for lunch. The freezer section of the fridge is downright miniscule, so this awesome thing happens where the extra food can't fit, and becomes soggy and rotty instead of freshly frozen. 
• Some of the fish require bite-sized pieces, so ripping apart frozen fish is fine, but ripping apart fleshy fish and having the innards spurt out like a ketchup squeeze-bottle under too much pressure is just too much. And the smell....oh my. I actually need to move along to the next point, because I'm getting sick just thinking of it.

2) Human Urine and Feces

• The same hands that make your coffee and grab your donuts have also cleaned the undersides of toilet-seats and piss stains. Dear, loyal, kind customers have the same afterproducts of energy acquisition as every other human being. It's...unpleasant. I guess I don't mind cleaning my own toilet because it's mine; I know where I've been, what I've eaten, that I harbor no freakish necrotic flesh diseases or parasites. 
• But to all of you who look at a public toilet, see the container for where the things belong, and then willingly choose to instead drop the load on the ground, all over the back of the toilet seat, or leave it in there for me to find later, I have a big SCREW YOU coming your way. If it's that hard to control yourself from crapping on the floor, or you feel the need to sit all the way back on the toilet so that your...ahem....orifice is pointed directly at the porcelain instead of the open bowl, might I suggest a litter box or Depends (TM). At the very least make an effort to clean up after yourself. If I see stuff is smeared around in an attempt to clean, I'll feel infinitely better than just a perfectly untouched puddle of urine. Remember that there is always someone who has to clean it up. Picture your dearest loved one having to pick it up and clean up your latest anal catastrophe. Don't picture me doing it, lest you decide to go all out and have Activia (TM), Mini-Wheats (TM), prunes, Metamucil (TM), and Milk of Magnesia just to spite me. 

1) Dead Cat

• The absolute worst was heading home from the coffee shop and seeing a cute little friend in the road. To prevent further mangling, I pulled over to move the cat and hopefully find the owner. I love animals, and I especially love cats, so seeing him so still and lifeless was the worst thing because it brought to a head that knowledge that any cat I would ever own would die. (I've got a phobia of death, it's better not to talk about it. Only years of mental help or my own impending death can fix me now.)
• I was in such a state of delirium over the grief I felt for the cat, that I thought it was still alive. The whiskers moved ever so slightly, and all at once I hoped the cat was alive and dead. I didn't want it to be dead, and yet, I definitely didn't want it alive and in pain that would result in more agony if I moved him. I thought of all the times he'd never sleep in a sunny window or meow happily for food, or secretly scratch the couch when his owner wasn't home, and grew more depressed by the second. In the middle of the two lane road where the speed limit was 50 mph, I had my emergencies on and my driver door open wide so hopefully I wouldn't get obliterated by oncoming traffic. I held out a flimsy sweatshirt I had never worn towards the cat and rested it over him lightly. I tried to pick him up, but he was still fluffy and soft and life-like. I finally lifted him, only a red stain left on the cement, and placed him gingerly into a paper bag. I covered him so I wouldn't have to see his little orange face. I felt guilty even though it wasn't my cat. If he had been my cat, I wouldn't have been as stupid as to let it be an outdoor cat in the middle of Maine next to a notoriously busy road where roadkill of all shapes and sizes happens every single night. I tried to stop bawling like an infant long enough to make the trek to the local neighbors and ask who was missing an orange cat. 
• The charming man I met when I asked who the cat belong to....well. That's a blog for another day.

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Our family's cat, Maybelline, who died a few years ago, most likely
the victim of a fishercat or coyote attack.
Keep your domestic pets indoor animals!