This post is gross… you have been fairly warned.

I may wake up at 5:30 in the morning, but my body is not ready to eat for a couple of more hours. Anything sooner and I just feel nauseous. I keep a box of oatmeal at work so I always know I have breakfast waiting for me when I get there. However, one of the things that breaks up my commute is to stop and get an iced coffee and an order of hash browns. The coffee gets me over the morning hump and the hash browns hold me over until oatmeal.

This isn’t an everyday occurrence, but it happens pretty often. I ordered my food this morning and as I neared the store, I confirmed the order and that I’d be walking in to get it. Most mornings by the time I get to the counter, my food is sitting waiting for me.

This morning I pulled in and went inside. It was relatively empty and I was surprised that my food wasn’t ready, but I didn’t mind waiting a few minutes. I noticed that the food prep people weren’t moving very fast, but oh well. As I stood there watching them, wondering which order would be mine, I noticed that one of the workers took his gloved hand and scratched at his arm. It wasn’t like a slight brushing of his fingers across his skin, it was like he had a serious itch on his rather hairy arm. I watched him for a moment thinking it was odd behavior for a food service worker, but maybe he just hands people the bags… But no, not 30 seconds later he was scooping out the hash browns with the same gloved hand and putting them into a bag!! MY HASH BROWNS!!! Oh, I wanted to gag. He turned around and handed me the bag and I just stared at is like it held some kind of plague. Ugh. Gross. Blech. I was so caught off guard, I took the bag and headed for my van. I set the bag in the passenger seat and it just sat there. Nope. Can’t do it. Not going to happen. I will not be eating arm hair hash browns. No. No. No.

Now I am aware that gross stuff happens with food. Thankfully, most of the time we never see it. “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over,” right?!? But when it happens and I see it, I am reminded how much trust we put into other people when we eat. And I’m not just talking fast food or eating in a restaurant. All of our food is handled by someone. Even healthy, fresh food goes through various hands before landing on our tables and into our bellies.

Unfortunately my hash browns found themselves in the first trashcan at work- a waste of food and a waste of money. I also realized I had run out of oatmeal, but thankfully there is a tasty bagel place across the street from my office and they came to the rescue!

The moral of the story, my friends, is to always pay attention and just say no to #armhairhashbrowns

Do you have any gross food stories to share?