2010-10-21

Coffee lids in public

Do you need a new neurosis?  Perhaps you already have this one.  But if not, here's something to think about.

This is the Seattle's Best Coffee shop in the South Satellite Concourse at the SeaTac airport.  This scene repeats itself at coffee shops and fast food restaurants around the country.


After you fill the serve-yourself soda, or you add the cream and sugar to your coffee, you take a lid from the stack and add put it on your cup.

I can never grab just one lid.  They stick together so I get two or three at a shot.  I peel off the lid I need, and then -- what?  What do you do with the extra lids?  Do you just throw these perfectly good lids in the trash?  Or, since they're unused, do you put them back on the stack?

I'm reasonably confident that the the staff at these facilities at least occasionally washes its hands. I'm not nearly as confident that the other customers do the same.

When I get the extra lids, despite my reasonably good hygiene, I toss them in the trash.Other customers do put them on the stack.

So the next customer to come along grabs the lid that will be in contact with their mouth and beverage from the stack, and they have no way of knowing who handled that lid before them.

That just seems kind of nasty.  And it's why I appreciate it when a store hands me the lid rather than just relegating them to the mass public pile.

3 comments:

Alan said...

But if they hand you the lid, obviously someone has touched it. Seems to me you are over-thinking this one.

Vera said...

Hmm I'd never thought of that, but you are absolutely right. Baristas should just hand the lids to the customer, one at a time.

Anonymous said...

You have echoed my thoughts completely. It annoys me when I see these lids piled up because you just never know who has handled them or possibly sneezed on them or maybe done something even nastier.