SPIT
Casual public spitting disgusts me. I look back over a lot of years and I can probably tell you the number of times I spit in public for no good reason. I ask, "what's so horrible in your mouth that you've got to spit it out, with regularity, right there on the sidewalk?" Really, what do you put in your mouth, or what do you eat or drink, or what odd body chemistry plagues you?
I pose this question telepathically to all the spitters who walk the stinky corridor that is Mission St., between 5th & 6th streets, in downtown San Francisco. This stretch is particularly spitty. Lot of bums, lot of construction workers, lot of old Chinese darnstresses. Is it possible to have a hyperactive salivary gland, producing more than one can swallow? Is it merely bad upbringing, like not wiping your butt well enough to ward of anal crusties? Or calling girls bitches? Or chewing with your mouth open?
I don't have the answer, but the answer must be found before I, in my dampest dreams, drown in a sea of saliva.
I pose this question telepathically to all the spitters who walk the stinky corridor that is Mission St., between 5th & 6th streets, in downtown San Francisco. This stretch is particularly spitty. Lot of bums, lot of construction workers, lot of old Chinese darnstresses. Is it possible to have a hyperactive salivary gland, producing more than one can swallow? Is it merely bad upbringing, like not wiping your butt well enough to ward of anal crusties? Or calling girls bitches? Or chewing with your mouth open?
I don't have the answer, but the answer must be found before I, in my dampest dreams, drown in a sea of saliva.
posted by Andrew @ 6:19 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
i guess the question for me is, is it ever ok to spit, provided one takes certain precautions?
i chew with my mouth closed. i can even breathe with it closed. i also tend to have decent bathroom hygiene. and yet i still spit.
i agree with you - it's disgusting. and yet there are times when my biology basically requires me to spit. given that this blog is fairly open when it comes to biology, i'll make a confession: my family is a bit on the phlegmy side. at least, the males are. couple that with allergies, and you've got a lot of phlegm (not saliva), more than one can reasonably swallow. in fact, when i was a kid, i was having allergy problems and just kept swallowing my phlegm instead of spitting. result? linda blair with allergies (aka projectile phlegm vomiting).
ew.
so, when things get out of hand, i spit as covertly as posible, aiming for the gutter or plants or other places where people won't see and/or step on said loogey (sp?).
now, those old chinese ladies coughing up lung oysters for all to see? you'll have to talk with my wife about that.
the real question is whether or not your wife yields pearls.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12638588
Greg Anderson, team physician to the canadian women’s worlds cup soccer team, explains when it is ok, indeed medically necessary, to spit
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