False Sense of Security

I was cruising through the grocery store today ... checking for sales, manhandling the fruit and trying to decide if I needed more wine in the house when I came across the deli. That's when it hit me. Yep, we needed more ham. So, I asked for a half-pound of honey-baked ham. Normal enough, right? The man behind the counter bent over behind the display and began looking for the product I'd requested. He couldn't find any so he looked here and there and then pulled open the refrigerator door to see if he could find some inside. Yep, there it was.

By then, though, I didn't think I wanted the ham. Just before he'd opened the fridge, he put his carefully gloved wrist near his nose .... and wiped. GROSS!

So then the question came to mind. "When was the last time he'd actually changed his gloves?" Because, really the gloves are there to assure the consumer about cleanliness and food safety, right? Well, I was not feeling assured. Frankly, he could have had those now-grimy gloves on all morning ... while he was cleaning the machines, handling this and that and whatever. All I know was that I was standing there asking myself whether I had enough guts to ask him to change his gloves before he touched my ham.

I chickened out.

Instead, I cut my order short and just asked for a quarter pound of ham, thinking all along that it was going in the trash.

So am I the only person with this question? When a new customer approaches the counter and that worker has been completing other tasks, shouldn't they change their gloves. Okay I'll admit I'm a little germ-a-phobic ... when other people are touching my food.

Do you blame me?