There are many interesting “facts” that are supposed to apparently make us think twice about certain things. Apparently food safety rules have a minimum allowable number of insect parts. The implication that our food has insect parts is supposed to be disturbing. Similarly, people will often mention that they close their toilet lid, after learning that flushing the toilet splattered “poo particles” into the air. Or they will never eat Rice Krispies again, after learning that there is a minimum allowable amount of rat feces.

But it’s all kind of neurotic, I think.

I think it is fair to say that nobody wants shit on things. But- it just literally cannot be helped and frankly, doesn’t really matter.

Fact is- have you eaten food? Yes? Then you’ve eaten shit. And insect parts.

Do you breathe? Yes? Guess what- you’re breathing in shit RIGHT NOW.

And it’s even worse if you are outside. Just think- the AIR is the toilet for pretty much every wild animal. Birds shit right into the air, and just let it land wherever, it splatters and particles diffuse into the air, Some bear takes a shit and that wafts and diffuses… When you “stop to smell the roses” you can smell roses but you are just filling your nose with shit. Dog shit. Fish shit. Bird shit. Truly a full collection.

So, given all that, this weird neuroticism is out of place. Seems like we are so comfortable now that we have to make up stuff that we should be “afraid” of or find gross. But can’t we just take a moment to really appreciate what we have? Consider that a few hundred years ago, if you had to take a dump overnight, you basically shat in a pot under your bed, then went to sleep in a room that smelled like sewage. Everything in the bedrooms were probably covered in it. Somehow, they managed to live with that ever-present danger. Now, We have running water and sewage plants and reasonably competent medical knowledge. Back then, you would take a dump in a jar under our bed, throw it out into the street, and maybe die at 25 from a cholera outbreak because shit was everywhere, while a “doctor” who thinks you’ve just been affected by bad air cures you by throwing nutmeg at your face. Now, we’ve got public sanitation, running water, and water treatment facilities. But somehow that’s not good enough. No, now we need to be concerned about some half-imagined boogeyman. Whether it’s “Shit on my toothbrush” or “insect parts in my cereal” there’s always something. We need to close the toilet lid, and cover our toothbrush, and never eat cereal again, lest this invisible and pretty much imperceptible but distasteful thing take place.

I mean, we have Windows now. Back then, glass wasn’t very affordable. Can you imagine having to go to sleep every night not knowing if you will wake up being tea-bagged by a squirrel? And yet, somehow, back then, people managed, and incidents of rodent tea-bagging were incredibly rare, but arguably under-reported.