this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2026
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You can hold the tip of your finger on the upper one and can thus control the flow by blocking the airflow.
I do this when putting it onto wings. This way I can apply it individually rather than splashing it all over.
Please don’t put your fingers on the holes of public dispensers, that’s just fucking disgusting for everyone else. You can pull bacteria back into the container, but it also just makes the hole dirty regardless.
For home use sure, not for public dispensers, and yes I avoid them when possible. It’s shitty for the environment, but I’ll get ketchup packages instead for example. Some of my family is immuno compromised, and it’s hard enough without people treating public stuff like it’s their own.
So my kids gotta be put at risk because you pick your nose than decide to go and wipe the extra ketchup off the dispenser?
Public doesn’t mean treat it as your own, it means we’re all using this, be respectful. Some people just throw garbage on the floor of their house, do you think that’s acceptable in public? Because that’s what you’re saying.
It’s not intended for people to stick their dirty public fingers in it. I wouldn’t even use it at home that way since it would dirty the rest of the stuff in the bottle, and it it takes longer to use at home so it has a longer chance to go off. There’s also far better ways to pour out measured or limited amounts, you would be far better off using a dish and dipping it.
This comment is actually turning out to be a very good indicator of who is more disgusting than they thought.
You can also drink milk straight out of the container, that’s its intended use, but do that to a public container and you’re gonna be punched in the mouth. Public items are a mutual agreement do not misuse it, but people like you treat stuff like it’s their own and everyone else has to suffer.
How’s it out of proportion to call out someone who doesn’t even have the basic decency to keep public things clean for others? Do you also wipe your nose and open doors too? Because that’s its intended use too…..
Are you insane?
Dirty holes 💦
You might like to know that those dispensers are likely never washed. Same with any condiment containers in any restaurant, at the most occasionally wiped down with a dirty rag.
I’ve been to restaurants where they collect and wash the condiment dispensers every day.
We actually washed ours on a regular schedule when I worked at a hibachi place.
This sounds no more reassuring than the guy admitting to putting his dirty finger on restaurant dispensers.
You don't know they haven't just washed their hands. In fact, since they're about to eat, it's likely they did. Especially since they specified wings, which are finger food. Are you saying you eat with dirty fingers? It's never occurred to me to use the airhole to control the flow, and I haven't eaten in a restaurant for several years, but I'm aware other people have touched any food I didn't cook myself and it doesn't put me off.
The kind of person who fingers public food dispensers is exactly the person I would expect to skip hand hygiene.
You have a lot more faith in people's hygiene than you should.
An alarming number of people routinely don't wash their hands even when they really, REALLY should. Stomach flu for example is almost solely transmitted by people who touch something with contaminated faeces on it, then bring their hand to their mouth. And that something is usually a bathroom door handle.
Judging by how common stomach flu is, it's statistically safer to assume nobody washes hands. But even if 99.9% did, all it takes is one idiot coming out of the bathroom and using the soy sauce dispenser to ruin your week.
As for restaurant staff "cleaning" things, I've seen more cleaners using dirty rags to spread dirt around and make surfaces look clean than actually cleaning anything. Even in my company, I refuse to let the cleaning lady in, because each time she comes, she uses the same rag she used in the bathroom to wipe my desk.
That reminds me, I once had a boss who used the same scrubber to clean both the toilet bowl and the sink. She did it so casually, seemingly clueless about how fucking nasty that is.
People are such fucking germaphobes now days I don't know how they function without having a nervous breakdown. Somehow, in 150 years we went from not quite believing the germ theory of disease to thinking everything is going to sicken us. I'm absolutely filthy to those people and guess who never gets sick. They'd die in our house. My wife often leaves her dinner on the stove or covered on the table and eats it for lunch or dinner the next night.
Yep, that’s why I use packets when I can, even though they aren’t the best for the environment. People need to stop treating public stuff like it’s their own personal crap.
I cannot imagine caring let alone thinking about it in the first place.
You don’t care about the comfort and safety of others?
These are pretty simple and basic things we can do to not be disgusting and cause issues for other people. But if you want to live that way, it’s entirely your pererogetive as well. It’s people like you that caused Covid to become so bad, such a selfish attitude.
It's not that. It's that I don't wander around the world thinking of every possible disgusting thing that may have happened to the food going in my mouth.
And get fucked BTW. I isolated, masked and got vaxxed. COVID killed my mother.
Soy sauce is so loaded with salt nothing can survive in there. Doing that in public is a bit rude, but not dangerous.
That is just completely false.
And don’t give stuff a chance to breed on the outside too. It’s not rude, it’s digusting. This also doesn’t just apply to soy sauce, it’s general life advice. Dont stick your fingers where other people will ingest from.
It’s sad this even needs to be stated.
You mean to say bacteria live in saltwater?! AH! Soy sauce is 128 to 172 grams of salt per liter, oceans are ~35, closer to the Dead Sea than normal sea water. I dare you to culture a halotolerant organism in soy sauce. You can borrow my chemistry shit! (It ain't much...)
Germaphobe thought is always about what's possible, not what's probable. My wife almost never refrigerates dinner, covers it and leaves it on the table or stove until the next day. Now lecture me using the numbers we all learned for our teenage food handling cert. "Food kept under 140F for over 3-hours should be destroyed in a furnace at 5,000F. 🤓" We should be dead and we don't even get upset tummies.
This'll make you puke: I use hair ties I find in parking lots. AH!
…. Soy sauce is literally made with a halotolerant bacteria. And it can also go wrong.
Assuming high salt means safe from bacteria is a plainly foolish way of going about stuff. Especially since it’s made with bloody bacteria… so how could it be made it nothing could live in it genius?
It was in the link I provided even
AH! GERMS! ER MER GERD!
Crazy thing about bacteria and other microorganisms, and this is gonna bake your noodle, they have to be able to live inside of us to be harmful. And the harmful are a tiny subset of those animals.
Did you take 2-seconds and look up "Lactobacillus plantarum"? I know you didn't. I did because I'd never heard of it.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3911214/
Huh. It's already in my gut and tested as a supplement.
Are you breathing now?! Stop that! You just sucked in bAcTeriA and FunGI! AH! For god's sake and your own health, NEVER GO OUTDOORS AGAIN!
You germaphobes are a bizzaro world version of anti vaxxers, no conception of real threats, but goddamned you're know sCienCE because GoOGle! Please, live in fear, don't let me stop you.
Providing knowledge makes me a germaphobe? Fucking strange logic dude.
You also constantly have flu germs in you, that doesn’t mean you’re safe from exposure to higher levels.
You have no concept about how any of this works, your other comments just let us know exactly how disgusting you are. It’s not germaphopic to point out you’re just a generally disgusting human being, and someone not wanting contact with you isn’t a germphobe. You’re just so filthy you’re a risk to anyone.
This may shock you, but a lot of humans even have “Clostridioides difficile” in them, and may not show any symptoms, but they can also infect other people. You’re disgusting.
If someone comes up to me covered in mud, and I ask them not to touch me, that doesn’t make someone a germaphobe. If I asked a clean person not to, yeah that’s germaphobic.
LOL, germaphobe, as I said. I don't get sick and neither does my wife or children. Explain.
I would love to send people like you back even a 100-years. You would starve to death, shaking in your boots for fear of food.
As I said, it's wild that we went from not believing the germ theory of disease to "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" And then on the flip side, "I ain't never known anyone with measles! That stab is poison!!!"
We sterilize our children and their homes, keep them inside, and now we're wondering why cancer, seasonal and food allergies are spiking in our young. I'm sure you'll have a pithy reply and link to that claim, while utterly ignoring these issues are not affecting us olds. (Or my kids for that matter.)
There is absolutely nothing anyone can say to explain this to you that you would comprehend. Again, I’ve explained why I’m not a germphobe, I don’t mind touching dirty stuff, but I’m gonna wash as soon as possible. Wanting to be clean isn’t the same as not wanting to touching germs, or feeling physically ill thinking about it.
It’s like sitting in a pool and wondering why everyone else is complaining about getting wet by rain, since you’re already wet.
You’re just a a filthy idiot, I bet you don’t return the carts to the corral when you’re done shopping too eh?
Of course I return my carts. But you want to put me in the "selfish" box and nothing will stop you. FFS, I didn't say I was gross in restaurants. I'm just not too worried about others being gross.
That sounds rather unhygenic considering that you can't tell which side someone has put their dirty finger on.
Potenttially so - just doesn't consider me as the only user of said bottle. Also, it might be a bit salty environment for bacteria.
in restaurants I’ve always wiped the spout first just in case this has happened
With what? Do they provide antibacterial wipes?
If you think that's gross, I've seen baby roaches in the parmesan cheese shaker that's on a pizza hut table before. Any of the condiments out on a table at a restaurant are most likely a wee bit questionable. Once I left my last food service job, I made sure to tip better, and rarely went to restaurants for a long time.
Yeah the back of many restaurants make me not want to go back there. I used to do inspections for strip mall type places. All access. Mice droppings above ceiling tiles are far too frequent.
with a napkin
doesn’t kill bacteria but kills cooties
Thankfully I've had my cootie shot.
If you're that concerned, I'd bring them. Do you wipe down the bottle? Because people definitely don't wash their hands and then they touch it. Or lick their fingers and touch it. Even if the spout is untouched, the bottle is well-handled.
The place we frequent they wipe the bottles down after each use, it’s a mutual thing between everyone. I don’t like supporting places that don’t even do the basics. But I always err on the side of caution, because even an employee can forget or not do an adequate job.
Having options is great.
I agree with the other responses. The thought of someone's finger there is rather unpleasant. But then again: you can never know who sat on your table before you. Could be a family with small children - the sticky ones who touch and lick everything. :D
One should trust the own body to protect himself from germs. Or bring wet wipes with you.