Salt.  NaCl.  Sodium chloride.  Table salt.  Sea salt.  A seasoning.  A preservative.  Once so valuable that soldiers were paid in it.  The reason most foods taste good.  Increases the pain of a stinging cut exponentially.  Makes your tongue dry.  A slightly creepy movie starring Angelina Jolie.

I love salt.  I can tell right away when food is too salty, or more often, not salty enough.

When I was little I used to shake some salt into my hand and eat it.  My mother tells me it’s disgusting, and perhaps it is.  But I do it anyway.

I prefer salty to sweet most days.  If I am presented with a bowl of jell-o or a bowl of white cheddar popcorn, 97% of the time I’ll pick the popcorn.

Salt is a necessity to any meal.  Which brings me to the purpose of this blog post.

How many people have seen one of these?

I’m gonna be presumptuous and assume everyone has seen this at least once in their lives.  Yes? Good.

They’re in restaurants, cafeterias, homes and anywhere else there is food.

Now let me ask you this:  How many times have you palmed the salt shaker?

How many times have you put your hand over the metal part and let your skin touch where the salt comes out?

Oh yeah, admit it. A LOT.

Though I am not proud of it, I confess, I have done it a fair amount.  Not on purpose mind you, but it’s a transgression I can never undo.

Am I making this sound dramatic and biblical?  Good.  That’s the point.

Now, this issue never used to bother me.  “Can you please pass the salt?” is often followed by someone palming the shaker and handing it to the asker.

I started seeing it more and more, often at school and restaurants.  Then I thought to myself.  Where have these people’s hands been???

There and endless possibilities of course.  People sneeze into their hands, they touch public things like bathroom doorknobs and pencil sharpeners (if you still use a graphite sharpenable  pencil that is), playing with questionably clean hair, scratching off dead skin, plopped down in unknown gooey matter, typing on filthy keyboards (it is a  proven fact that toilet seats are cleaner than keyboards because they are sanitized more often).

The unpleasantries go on and on.  Mindful of this new information, I became wary of my beloved public salt.  Now I use it sparingly.

Although, these shakers do not concern me:

They also prevents this:

My point: be mindful of the shaker.  Don’t palm the salt!