I recall that, when my oldest son was in high school, he did a science project culturing swabs from various places around the home. We were horrified to discover that the swabs from our mouths produced more prolific results than those from the dog’s mouth and the bathroom.
The matching spoon has the cereal number.
Agreed. But, gross.
Voila:
My sister in law (wife’s sister) freaked out when she found out that the pot I was cooking spaghetti in is the same pot my wife soaks her feet in. It’s been through the dishwasher countless times, but she didn’t care.
I told my wife later that we should probably never tell her that our stainless steel mixing bowl is also the “puke bowl”. 
Y’know, I’ve never been on a cruise ship, but it occurs to me that there’s probably some way to get your meals in your own cabin, with a steward picking up the dirty dishes later. So who knows what any given fork ends up getting up to.
Cruise ships aside, that’s true for any hotel that has room service!
It’s true in a home. I’ve found my good spoons in the sand box, in the flower bed that also is the lost pet burial ground.
In a miracle grow box. In seed bags. In bedrooms. Under the couch.
Yeah, I’m never sure what this bunch is doing with the flatware.
At home.
I sure hope they know better than to do it out in a public place. Gah!
(Note to self: buy plastic forks to hide for personal use)
Forget about forks. Watch any group of humans for a while to see nose- and ear-picking, then touching stuff. Will a hotel replace every doorknob, light switch, and remote? Elrevator buttons? Obviously not.
Yeah I know about door knobs and handles. Especially in public restrooms.
I also know my own phone is germified.
So yeah, I wanna hide in the closet awhile and try not to think about nasty buggaboos allover everything. Think I’ll think about eyelash mites. That usually breaks the the freak out.
Arrrggghhh!!
Given the rest of your very legit health issues that render you a tad … delicate, shall we say.
The fact eyelash mites, your kids’ mistreatment of flatware, and boogers on elevator buttons haven’t killed you pretty well proves they’re harmless to you and therefore the rest of us as well.
A sincere thank you for being the canary in all our coalmines there Beck. Job well done! 
I was hosting a Dungeons & Dragons game when one of the players took off his shoes and started clipping his toenails in the middle of the game. People are weird.
No. Practically speaking, I’m not even sure they could have possibly tracked down that specific fork to retire it.
I don’t think the woman who scratched her foot was stupid. Perhaps a little uncouth, but not stupid.
Quite frankly, if you’re on a cruise ship you need to accept that you’re on a floating petri dish full of disgusting germs. I don’t condone scratching your foot with a fork, but come on, if you went in one of the hot tubs I don’t want to hear any complaints.
I hate to think what she would say if she saw that we let our pet rats eat off the human plates.
Quite so - which is why regular alcohol consumption is recommended. You know, for medicinal purposes.
A friend of mine used to work for a small but successful software company. Their chief software designer didn’t take off his shoes when he attended customer meetings, he just didn’t wear any. According to my friend, he would sometimes rest his bare feet up on the boardroom table for the admiration of all while he pontificated on whatever technical issue was being discussed. They couldn’t fire him because he was as brilliant as he was eccentric, and was basically the core of the whole software development organization.
I’m not sure what became of him, but what I know is that in the typical style of corporatism, the company got bought out and I’m sure that the new suits in charge had no time for eccentric geniuses, so something had to give.
It’s actually kinda worse than that. First she scratched the manky foot at length with her hand. Then she used the same hand to pick up a chicken nugget and eat it. THEN she reaches for the fork and starts going to town with that.
Well, at least the passenger wasn’t using spoons! 
Seriously, I’m sure that Carnival Cruises is giving its PR a boost by saying, “We’ll retire that fork and destroy it,” I’m also sure that they’re throwing it in the dishwasher, and using it again.