This is what happens when we�re buried in legal briefs, mired in obscure legal questions, and haunted by the tic-toc of our nearing deadline. My co-clerk, today, wandered into my office munching on the baby carrots she had just retrieved from the refrigerator. Suddenly, whether out of the insanity that can result from overwork or merely out of perverted need to get a reaction out of me, she proceeded to stick one baby carrot up each of her nostrils, pull them out, and pop them into her mouth.
Yes, you read that correctly, she stuck the carrots up her nose and then ate them.
I was understandably disgusted.
She found it amusing, but not disgusting.
Me: That�s objectively gross.
Her: No it�s not. The same mucus that�s in my nose is also in my throat.
Me: I can�t believe you can really argue that sticking a carrot in your nose and then eating it isn�t disgusting.
Her: You�ll suck a penis, or kiss a man after he�s been licking your twat.
Me: That�s irrelevant. What you do in the context of sex is immaterial to whether or not it�s appropriate to stick food in your various orifices and then eat it.
Her: Same thing.
Me: No it�s not.
Her: Ah-huh.
Me: Nuh-uh.
Clearly, our brilliant legal minds were at an impasse.
So, we called a fellow law clerk. She was properly repelled.
My co-clerk was not satisfied, so we called still another law clerk. He found nothing wrong with sticking carrots up your nose and then eating them, although he wouldn�t approve of sticking carrots in any other bodily orifice before eating them. Although I was relieved to know that he had some outer parameters to his allowable degrees of disgusting behavior, I was nonetheless disappointed, and just a little bit frightened, that he approved of this conduct.
We needed a tie breaker. We called a third law clerk. He equivocated. My co-clerk reiterated her argument that the mucus in her nose was the same mucus in her throat. He found this argument to have some merit. He asked me how I responded to this. My response was two fold. First, res ipsa fucking loquitor. The thing obviously speaks for itself. Second, to my knowledge, my co-clerk does not pick her nose and then proceed to eat whatever she excavates. So, clearly one is not the same as the other. He was understandably impressed by my advocacy skills. He took the matter under submission.
Later, he called to say that he polled his fellow clerks and found that two did not find it objectionable, one abstained from voting, and he had not yet made up his mind.
People, it worries me beyond my ability to adequately express that some of my peers find this behavior tolerable. So, I�ve decided to put it to you, in hopes that I will find more reasonable minds here.
A person sticks a baby, peeled carrot up her nose and then proceeds to eat it. (Same person's nose and mouth).Is this (a) objectively gross or (b) not that big of a deal?
Please post your responses in comments or notes.
And in a follow up discussion, my co-clerk has proposed that it is not objectively unsanitary to forego washing your hands after using the restroom (to urinate only) when you�re in your own home.
I say YUCK. You should always wash your hands. With both soap and water.
Isn�t this something you learn coextensively with potty training?!?!
Since when did this become a �flexible� rule?!?!
So, yeah, if you�d like to, weigh in on this one too.
Isn�t it troubling fascinating what goes on in the halls of justice?
Listening To: NPR
Reading: boring legal crap
Feeling: disgusted (and fairly certain that I'm never shaking my co-clerk's hand again)