this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2026
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[–] plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 58 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] mysticpickle@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

Dirty holes 💦

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

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.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

I’ve been to restaurants where they collect and wash the condiment dispensers every day.

[–] SpikedIguana@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We actually washed ours on a regular schedule when I worked at a hibachi place.

[–] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This sounds no more reassuring than the guy admitting to putting his dirty finger on restaurant dispensers.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works -4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

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.

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

The kind of person who fingers public food dispensers is exactly the person I would expect to skip hand hygiene.

[–] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You don’t know they haven’t just washed their hands. In fact, since they’re about to eat, it’s likely they did.

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.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world -2 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world -2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I cannot imagine caring let alone thinking about it in the first place.

[–] plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world -2 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world -4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Soy sauce is so loaded with salt nothing can survive in there. Doing that in public is a bit rude, but not dangerous.

[–] plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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!

[–] plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

…. 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

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world -2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

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.