Today's Review: People Who Lick Their Fingers To Turn Pages

I served a guy today. He took out a small wad of notes, licked his finger, took one off the top and handed it to me. Gee, thanks. Just what I wanted, a bank note covered in your spittle. It's almost as bad as the people who put their debit card between their teeth before taking it out and handing it to me spit side first. It's still bad though, and a lot more prevalent. Since the beginning of my days, where there has been a relatively older person reading a book or magazine, or going through some paperwork, there has been a nonchalant licking of fingers.

I'm not alone in my opinion, just do a quick search on Google and you'll find plenty of people asking why this is necessary. It's widely assumed that old people have dried out fingers that can't turn pages, so the saliva helps them with that, but there are plenty of younger-ish people who lick their fingers to turn pages all the time. But in my experience none of my peers have ever used such a tactic, and I'm sure I would've called them out on it if I saw it. So in my view it's just old people with incompetent fingers.

I've had a problem turning a page probably only a few times in my life. All it took was a bit of persistence. Trying again, maybe a third time, but I managed to turn that page. At no point did I think "You know what would really help? Shoving my finger in my mouth and then trying." If I was gonna do that I might as well just spit on the page. You know why I didn't do either? Because it's disgusting.

On these very same sites where people are questioning why this happens, there exist several springing to defend it. "Oh, it's really hard to turn pages without licking my fingers. It's only a bit of spit, haven't you got worse things to worry about?" Oh sure, you need to do it, so it's perfectly acceptable, especially if you feel uncomfortable using the alternatives, like a rubber tip on your finger, or using some other form of liquid. Hey, I can't shake hands with someone until I've hocked a big fat loogie into my palm, otherwise I can't get a good grip. Does that mean it's okay for me to do? No it does not, so I reserve the right to call you all filthy people with inadequate hands.

My rating: 0/5