I think I'm going to throw up

Earlier this week I was playing at Sunset Station. Two middle-aged women, obviously friends, got some food delivered to the table and started sharing it. They were on the other end of the table, and the little cart with their meal on it was behind them, so I couldn't see exactly what they were eating, but it was some sort of finger food. They didn't wash their hands--just dug right in. They, when it was their turn to play, they'd LICK THEIR FINGERS OFF and resume play, as if nothing had happened.

It makes me nauseous just thinking about it.

How can people be so clueless? Poker chips and cards are filthy, disgusting things. Pick up any chip, and you can see globs of crud adhering to it. ("Table boogers," I once heard a dealer fittingly call them.) I know all too well that the majority of men leaving the public restrooms in casinos haven't washed their hands. Whatever is now on their hands, from their butts and genitals, gets spread all over the chips and cards.

And then you ladies want to handle those chips and cards for a few hours, then pick up and ingest food without first washing your hands, and then, to top it all off, LICK YOUR FINGERS??????????? What the hell is wrong with you? Are you just mentally ill?

Here's an interesting article from Bluff magazine about an experiment to determine the bacterial inhabitants of Vegas poker chips: http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/2007/02/2007_02_54.asp. I only wish they had tested for viruses as well as bacteria.

And have you two ladies never, ever seen guys who openly pick their noses at the table? I have, many times, in a series of images that are seared into my retinas. Coincidentally, here's Daniel Negreanu's video blog from just yesterday, in which he discusses Mike Matusow doing the same thing--and the camera pans over to Mike, who freely admits he goes digging for gold openly, and doesn't care who sees it or knows about it: http://www.rawvegas.tv/watch.php?vID=6259beb58303c9d0ed2626fbab1eb6. Trust me: Mike is not alone in his lack of discretion about this activity.

So these ladies handle the chips and cards that have players' snot dribbled about on them, and then LICK THEIR FINGERS! Perhaps they think, somehow, that the rest of us sharing those cards and chips really, really want these women's saliva added to the already disgusting blend of crud we have to touch.

I remember an episode of Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown" featuring the famously germophobic Howie Mandel. It was seriously bothering him to be handling the cards and chips, so he passed out latex gloves for everybody to wear. It was funny, but it was also pretty clear that this wasn't just a joke for him--he really couldn't handle thinking about all the microbes that were getting passed around. I'm not a germophobe--really--I just have a decent understanding of and healthy suspicion of the microbial flora that will invariably contaminate objects that get handled by so many members of the general public, many (most?) of whom have highly questionable habits of personal hygiene.

I'm not advocating that poker rooms hand out or require the use of rubber gloves while playing. But common sense suggests that one take care not to touch anything the cleanliness of which you care about (like, say, your face, or your food) after handling such manifestly foul things as poker cards and chips, without first washing one's hands pretty thoroughly.

Lordy, lordy, lordy--there's just no understanding some people's lack of good sense.

Addendum, May 6, 2011

I see that the link to the Bluff magazine piece no longer works. Here's the new link to get to the article: http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/Dirty-Vegas--Bluff-Staff-750.htm