Schmutzie started this one. I’m not going to tag anyone. Feel free to do it if you want.

• Pumping gas. It took me until I was out of high school to be able to pump gas and I still feel jumpy when I do it. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies where gas stations explode into mushroom clouds of fire but I suspect that this is going to happen every time I pump gas. I love the pay at the pump phenomenon because it allows to me to get gas and get out of there as fast as possible.
• Shopping cart handles. I use shopping carts a lot because I need a place to contain the one year old who will wreak havoc if allowed to run free. But I always feel jumpy about the handles that I know have been touched by thousands of other people who may or may not be sick or may or may not have washed their hands after going to the bathroom. I’m not a really paranoid person when interacting with people. I don’t worry about shaking hands or public door handles or having a person over to my home, even when they’re sick. But I am highly suspicious of those shopping carts. You never know what plague is hiding out on them.
• People who sell their religion door to door. Along with people who claim to know what God is thinking or use God as an excuse not to make decisions for themselves or believe that religious tracts accomplish anything but piss people off.
• Fruits and vegetables in the same dish, for example salads with strawberries or orange slices. There is no excuse for this kind of abomination. There is something so very wrong about the mixing of these two categories. Even the fact that they are both in the same “food group” makes me uncomfortable. The only exception to this rule is ham and pineapple pizza which is fabulicious.
• Lineups (Schmutzie had this one too). I always try to pick the line I think will be shortest and do you think I am EVER right? It seems the very act of me getting in line makes a cashier’s IQ drop several hundred points and slow down the whole process by minutes, hours, days.
• Jello or Pasta Salad. I’m sorry but the most important ingredient in salad is lettuce or spinach. If there is no lettuce? Not salad. Actually, I am extremely suspicious of Jello and cold pasta on their own. There is something questionable about both foods.
• Toilets. I always suspect that toilets are just waiting to back up and flood all over the bathroom. Every flush is a disaster waiting to happen. It is absolutely the most disgusting thing to clean up and I suspect the toilet knows which person would find the task the most putrifical and will go from functioning normally to plugged-up, poop-spewing john from hell in seconds.
• Water Filters. How do you ever know they are working? Answer: You don’t. Deep down I suspect that the lead seeping into our drinking water from 100 year old lead pipes is getting through our tap filter and then again through our Brita pitcher filter. Yes, I filter twice. I am that suspicious. But lead can really f*ck up kids brains. I will be glad when we can live in a newer house where I don’t have to be so concerned about lead. I never used a filter until this year. But I never needed to before.