Cheetos Fingers

As you may have gathered, I think children are adorable BUT they are also germ bags. Today put my gag reflex to the test.


It was a boy's birthday and his mum kindly brought in cake. It was meant to serve 15, so we were preeeetty proud we served it to 30. We had one leftover slice that was offered to me by my teaching partner. How kind.

The kindest moment is yet to come though. One of the boys in my class thought the cake was too far for me to reach across the whole 3 feet from the door to the office, so he scooped it up with his tiny, germ-ridden fist and passed it to me with expectant eyes. How kind times two. "Here Ms. Thomas, for you!"

Mmmmmm...delicious. His fingerprints were molded into the sides of the icing. I could clearly make out the indentations of the minuscule ridges from his thumb pad. What to do?

The plot thickens. This child was in after school club (yes this was after hours) and I had just sat with him chatting while he polished off his bag of Cheetos (in England they are called Wotsits - ugh). Now as you probably know, eating this particular type of food produces a layer of film along your snatching fingers called cheese scum. This of course occurs in whichever country you eat them and no matter the name - Cheetos, Wotsits, etc. You also probably know, that the only way to remove this layer is to either burn it off or commence the loud, wet, sucking actions which removes everything but the smell. I know, I know - gross.

I watched this whole process 3 minutes before he passed me my cake.

Now do I refuse the cake, no doubt offending the child and wasting a delicious piece? Or do I push through and try to choke it down with as much enjoyment as my twisting stomach will allow?

I went for it. He was staring up at me like Bambi in the forest, waiting to watch me really enjoy the cake he had already tried. To reference another Disney moment, it was comparable to Lady nosing a meatball toward the tramp in a back alley (none to far from our actual situation). This forced me to make a lot of "mmmm so good, thank you!!" and "mmm mmm tasty!" comments and loud eating noises to cover for my winching expression. He was very pleased with himself that he had done me a such a large and thoughtful "favour."

Needless to say I am not hungry for dinner as my stomach is still flip flopping.
Let us all also hope he didn't go to the toilet right before he ate his Wotsits...