OMG OMG OMG Gross Gross! I touched someone's loogie!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Dammit, I KNEW this was gonna happen someday! GROSS!!! It BURNS!!!
First of all, yeah, I guess I was askin’ for it.
Here’s the story…

In California, our scratcher lottery tickets have a “second chance” draw for losing tickets, you just enter the ticket number online. When the particular game ends, they have a draw for the top prize in the game, which can be $10,000, $100,000, a million, 2 million… nice stuff. Especially if you can enter to win for free. (I only enter for top prizes over 10K)

My local liquor store has a couple of garbage bins inside the store, short plastic bins like the ones you’d use in a bathroom. They are always full of losing scratcher tickets. That could be entered into the second chance drawing.

So about a year ago I became a trashpicker, scrounging the tickets. All the guys at the liquor store know me, and not long after I started doing this, the maintenance guy started saving them FOR me, which was really nice. But he was random about it, and he’s not always there, so I will still do it myself.

I would always pick them out with two fingers and quickly slip them into a bag. When I get home, I will inspect and clean them off or just wear gloves. Cuz hey, I picked 'em outta the trash. But the trash usually only has lottery slips, scratchers, newspapers and other harmless paper trash that’s really not a big deal. The worst would be a coffee cup. But still, its the TRASH, and besides, other people’s cootie-laden hands were all over them first, scratching them, and one of the things I cherish about working at home and not going out much is avoiding other people’s cooties.

Well, yesterday I was in the store and the bin next to the lottery kiosk was full of high prize tickets, right on top, facing up, nothing else over them or anything. I reached down, grabbed them… and stuck my hand in a huge, cold, slimey LOOGIE!!!

I screamed. Literally screamed. And ran over to the counter guy and started babbling while holding my hand as far away from myself as I could: "Please please do you have hand sanitizer please god I touched a loogie please please I beg of you please please can I wash my hands I thinkI’mgonnadiefromthegrosspleasepleasepleaseCANIPLEASEWASHMYHANDSIFYOUDON"TLETMEWASHMYHANDIWILLHAVETOCHOPITOFFPLEASE!!!

They all speak English as a second language and I think I was talking kinda fast for them because it took WAY too long (maybe a whole minute) before the counter guy said “Okay, sure” and waved me to the sink in the back.

I scrubbed my hands with dishsoap and Ajax for about five minutes.

I swear I could still feel it burning thoough my thumb for hours afterwards…

Yes, I’m still gonna snag loser tickets -yes, winning would be worth the loogie experience, I just don’t need to repeat it, so from now on, the only way I go near trashed tickets is with gloves. I’ll just keep a supply in the GLOVEbox of my car.

<shudder> Gah…

2

Isn’t it more of a question of whether buying your own tickets is less repulsive than scrounging for discarded ones?

3

Yeah, Ajax would probably do that to you… :wink:

4

You’re routinely picking through garbage and shock that something icky touched you?

Get a little bottle of alcohol based hand cleaner, invest in rubber gloves, or stop picking garbage!
I give this rant a ‘meh’ rating.

5

You’re routinely picking through garbage and are shocked that something icky touched you?

Get a little bottle of alcohol based hand cleaner, invest in rubber gloves, or stop picking garbage!
I give this rant a ‘meh’ rating.

So tell us, how much have you won, on garbage picked tickets, to date?

6

Roughly $300.

How, you say? Because in the course of entering them online, if the ticket is a winner, it is rejected. So I look closer and check…and whaddya know, the person who tossed it didn’t realize they had won, or didn’t even scratch that bonus box, or what have you.

I’ve won $50 twice,and many $20, 10 and 5s.

That’s not the wins I’m looking for when I pick 'em, but it’s a nice little bonus.

To the person who asked about buying them: I do buy a few, but not many. I’d have to spend a lot of money to get the same number of tickets. (The big prize tickets are $3-$5.)

And of course I’m not shocked, just completely horrified and grossed out. I was already being pretty careful. Now I’m going to be insanely so, gloves all the way.

7

Spit on your own hand before you reach into the garbage so you won’t notice it

8

I touched a maliciously placed loogie once. I was watching a baseball game and it was on the fence I went to go lean up against. I didn’t freak- I was far too angry at the asshole. It would have been worth him doing it, just so I could have caught him doing it.

9

Gah - your post is actually (still) making me dry retch. Other peoples snot is a major hurl trigger for me. I once had to clean a smear of booger off the wall at church (why - because no one else would do it and I nearly hurled every time I walked past it) I retched the entire time and for quite a while after. Disgusting snotty nosed poorly trained kids should be kept in a box and only released when they can keep their snot to themselves (slight exaggeration of my true feelings)

10

If I walked into my local liquor store, one where I have never spent a dime, and started digging through their trash, I don’t think I’d be allowed in the store for long. How much money do you routinely spend at this liquor store each week? Obviously enough that they don’t mind you digging through their trash, but I’m wondering where that bar is set.

11

Jeez, it’s only a loogie. Just lick it off.

Joe

12

Why would they care? (And “digging” is strong. Bend over, 30 seconds, tickets are retrieved.)

We talked about it. One of the guys had been doing it himself, but he got frustrated at not winning and stopped. Another guy at my local 7-11 does it. He loved it when a particular game came out that was a little tricky and people didn’t realize there were two ways to win. He told me he made a lot of money digging those tickets out.

13

Yeah, it’s low carb!

14

Does it matter from whom it came?

Lindsay Lohan

Charlie Sheen

Fred Phelps
???

15

Heh heh heh…

I think I would have to be literally starving before I would scavenge through trash for the chance to maybe win some money.

16

Jeepers, people, it’s not dumpster diving.

17

If you found a slice of pizza on the top, untouched, would you eat it?

18

No, dude! Carbs!

19

My trite Seinfeld reference has been thwarted by a lapse in memory!

Replace pizza in my previous post with a giant ham.

20

<WAG>
I hereby propose the hypothesis that the OP neither has small children or has/is contemplating a career in the health services, e.g. as a nurse.
</WAG>

When you’ve been through all the different types of messy diaper changes you can imagine, plus a baker’s dozen of even more gross types than you are able to imagine, you sorta get a slightly more relaxed relationship to bodily fluids…