# What seemingly innocuous things can you just NOT look at? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 27, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714 "2010-08-27T20:44:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/181 "2010-09-07T16:13:18Z")
> [@Proudest\_Monkey](#): > > I hate seeing stuff swirl down the sink drain. In the bathroom it’s usually either soap and water, or toothpaste and spit. The kitchen sink swirl might have bits of food or soap or those coagulated clots of fat – ugh to all! > > Say I have an inch or two of coffee left in the pot that I have to dispose of. I will slowly and carefully pour it into the drainhole rather than dumping it quickly and rinsing with water that would make a disgusting coffee/water swirl. Me too. And dealing with anything left in the drain is a serious squick-out moment for me as well. Even if it hasn’t been sitting in the dirty dishwater for long. ---
**Author:** ![Godinama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e95f7d/32.png) [@Godinama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Godinama)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/182 "2010-09-07T16:34:27Z")
Anything with a honeycomb pattern to it (like a beehive) or anything with a bunch of tiny circles (like a grouping of tiny soap bubbles) makes me gag. It’s seriously revolting to me and I hate it because I realize that it’s totally irrational and I have no other idiosyncrasies that are outside of the sphere of “normal”. ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/183 "2010-09-07T17:14:51Z")
> [@BestWifeEver](#): > > It’s not exactly something I can’t look at but: revolving doors. I avoid them like the plague. If I HAVE to go through one, I am constantly thinking that the door will get stuck and I’ll be trapped with no way out… :eek: _shiver_ Regular doors work just fine for me - I don’t see how anyone can stand going through those things… So, do you not want to hear about the time I stupidly misjudged how long it would take me to dart in to the revolving door while wearing nineteen layers of winter clothing and got trapped in between the door and the edge, bringing the door to a grinding halt while two dozen irritated Montrealers tutted at me for interrupting their day by being ineffably stupid and Anglo and my friend just about pissed herself laughing, having escaped the clutches of the Deadly Door and stood outside waiting? I had to detangle my purse, then slowly back up, extricate myself from the door, apologizing all the while through the glass, before re-entering the door like a normal human and going on my merry way and never, ever, ever visiting that particular entrance ever again. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/184 "2010-09-07T17:25:35Z")
> [@Godinama](#): > > Anything with a honeycomb pattern to it (like a beehive) or anything with a bunch of tiny circles (like a grouping of tiny soap bubbles) makes me gag. It’s seriously revolting to me and I hate it because I realize that it’s totally irrational and I have no other idiosyncrasies that are outside of the sphere of “normal”. I was fascinated to find out that a lot of people seem to have this reaction–enough that it has a name (though I can’t remember what it is anymore–there’s even a Wikipedia page about it, along with several web pages.) I found all of this out when I went looking for Lotus Boob. Do \*not \*google that if you have this phobia, btw. Even though it’s a Photoshop, apparently it’s quite traumatic for some folks. ---
**Author:** ![boneitis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@boneitis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boneitis)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/185 "2010-09-07T18:26:18Z")
Probably not as big of a deal as the OP was asking for, but I get enough comments from my friends about it that I think it’s worth a mention. Seeing people touch TV/LCD screens directly with their fingers or skin, no matter how much dust/dirt is on them. Not as bad, but it still bothers me to see people use a cotton fabric to clear off dust. OTOH, it actually more or less soothes me when I see someone cleaning a screen with any synthetic fabric. Phone screens being touched, I guess, sits all right with me. ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/186 "2010-09-07T19:05:19Z")
Male turkeys. And their gobbling. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/187 "2010-09-07T19:12:44Z")
> [@Shannon](#): > > 1. The way the word “tuber” sounds to my ears I don’t like the sound of the word “expunge”, but it doesn’t bug me enough for me to bring it up for the thread. I think the word should be removed from the dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![Gymnopithys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@Gymnopithys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gymnopithys)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/188 "2010-09-07T19:29:35Z")
> [@E.Thorp](#): > > > [@zweisamkeit](#): > > > > [Newer windmills](http://osha.europa.eu/en/blog/windmill.jpg). Jeezy Creezy they creep me out so bad! They look like the kind of thing that would show up in some horror scene in a movie. > > Oddly, I have an irrational _love_ for these windmills. I’m tempted to go back to school and become a wind engineer (or whatever they’re called) just so I can be near them. There are many things uglier than windmills. Like those rusty metal sculptures they call “art”. There’s a huge one on the center of a traffic circle near where I live. And I have to drive by that carcass several times a week. I rebel when I see that horror. But it’s “Modern Art”. So how dare you complain ? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/189 "2010-09-07T22:28:02Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > > [@Shannon](#): > > > > 1. The way the word “tuber” sounds to my ears > > I don’t like the sound of the word “expunge”, but it doesn’t bug me enough for me to bring it up for the thread. I think the word should be removed from the dictionary. One might even say it should be expunged from the dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/190 "2010-09-07T22:57:03Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > > > Is this a common problem for you? I mean, I can’t even think of the last time I saw a picture of a sloth. Is your town sloth-infested? > > I had one roommate who was a biology student. I spent many an hour paging through her textbooks helping her look up citations, and unfortunately coming across the horrifying photos. > > Then, later on, I had another roommate whom I mentioned to that I thought sloths were freaky, and she professed that she loved sloths and thought they were totally adorable. She would harass me by surprising me with sloth photos when I least expected them–Slothrolling me, if you will. No one expects the Sloth Inquisiton! > [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > > [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > > > One of Fritz Leiber’s modern horror stories set in San Francisco featured the [Sutro Tower](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutro_Tower). It, umm, _moved_. When I visited that beautiful city, I did find it just a bit frightful. (Herb Caen, quoted at that link: “I keep waiting for it to stalk down the hill and attack the Golden Gate Bridge.”) > > > > Somebody mentioned watching somebody eat boiled eggs. Not a problem for me. But that icky, sulfurous smell is. (And I like egg salad–& love deviled eggs.) > > > > (I guess I shouldn’t mention isopods.) > > \ That is precisely the kind of structure that would send me into a panic attack if I were looking at it in person, so thanks for sharing \*that \*:eek:😃 Not real crazy about the boiled eggs either ftr. There’s a great scene near the end of Umberto Eco’s \*Foucault’s Pendulum[/I]where the narrator is terrorized in Paris by unexpected glimpses of the Eiffel Tower. Very much in this vein. And eggs are just gross. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/191 "2010-09-08T02:23:05Z")
\ My sister-in-law can’t touch photo paper. Apparently the feel of it just squicks her out to the millionth degree. She’s a cop, and more than once she’s had to take reports about people going missing. Family members would try and hand her a printed photo, and she’d have to have them place it in an envelope or put it directly in the report folder. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/192 "2010-09-08T04:03:32Z")
Parking garages, of the multi-story variety. They always look as if they’re on the verge of collapsing from all the weight that’s on them. ---
**Author:** ![MetalHead91](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@MetalHead91](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MetalHead91)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/193 "2010-09-08T04:18:40Z")
I hate it when a cello’s peg has a “nipple,” I guess would be the best way to describe it. That might have something to do with my high school section leader’s tendency to lick his peg’s “nipples” during sectionals. Speaking of cellos, I also can’t stand looking at a string instrument that’s missing a string or strings. It makes me think that someone’s bucktoothed the poor thing on purpose seeing as they haven’t replaced the string(s). ---
**Author:** ![Dunkelheit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dunkelheit/32/248_2.png) [@Dunkelheit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunkelheit)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/194 "2010-09-08T07:41:56Z")
> [@MetalHead91](#): > > I hate it when a cello’s peg has a “nipple,” I guess would be the best way to describe it. That might have something to do with my high school section leader’s tendency to lick his peg’s “nipples” during sectionals. Uh… okay, that’s creepy behaviour. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/195 "2010-09-08T11:15:38Z")
People walking barefoot on asphalt. All i can think about is them stubbing their toe and grinding off all the skin down to the bone. How’s that? Did I make you shiver? ---
**Author:** ![Scantzen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Scantzen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scantzen)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/196 "2010-09-08T13:17:06Z")
Hmmm… after reading this thread, I’m disturbed to know that there are so many people out there with what sound like debilitating neuroses, lurking just below the surface. Now I’m afraid that, walking down the street, I may rub my eye or scratch my ear, and thereby cause some stranger to puke all over me. What I was squicked out by at the beginning of this thread: not much (I’m the kind of guy who brings his own mirror to a root canal) What I am now squicked out by: the rest of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/197 "2010-09-08T14:06:05Z")
> [@John\_Bredin](#): > > > [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > > > I don’t like the sound of the word “expunge”, but it doesn’t bug me enough for me to bring it up for the thread. I think the word should be removed from the dictionary. > > One might even say it should be expunged from the dictionary. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/198 "2010-09-08T14:17:22Z")
> [@llazzllo](#): > > Oh, and silverfish. But is there really anyone who ISN’T freaked out by them? I’m not. I don’t enjoy them or anything, but they don’t freak me out – they seem so benign. Cockroaches and centipedes, on the other hand, make me want to tear the room apart to get away from them, but I don’t consider them innocuous. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DerekBlank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7bcc69/32.png) [@DerekBlank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekBlank)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/199 "2010-09-08T18:58:06Z")
Shower heads. Particularly if they are the massive plate sized ones with the small little black nozzles arranged in concentric circles. EeeeEeeeeEeeeech. ---
**Author:** ![Klytus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Klytus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Klytus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714/200 "2010-09-08T19:30:11Z")
> [@E.Thorp](#): > > Someone sitting in the passenger seat of a car and propping their feet on the dashboard. > > I _hate_ that. If I’m driving on the highway in summertime and see bare feet on the dashboard of some other car, it squicks me right out. No idea why. Glad I’m not the only one. My reaction is a combination of revulsion and a mad desire to smack the offending feet with a baseball bat. It took every ounce of love and self-control I had when a lady-friend of mine did that in my own car while I was driving… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-innocuous-things-can-you-just-not-look-at/551714.md?page=11)