The Unspoken Story of the Cookie Swap

Cookie Swaps: The hidden killer! Today the rant will be about these fun filled holiday food poisoning parties. Yeah you read right, food poisoning. I would like to say I'm alone and a bit paranoid regarding these kinds of things but the more people I talk with the more I realize I am not. What was once a family tradition of siblings exchanging baked goods, i.e. cookies, instead of expensive gifts has been bastardized into a devious device of torturing me that balances itself on social graces. Social grace is a department in which I am sorely lacking.

First off trading baked goods with my family and many of my friends is not a problem. I know what their cooking, eating, and cleaning habits are like. In my own kitchen the dishwasher is always in flux and the sink is cleaned out twice a day at a minimum and I clear everything off and spray it down with heavy duty cleaner at least twice a week. Of course that is just me. I have no idea what other people who may be involved in the giant work sponsored cookie swap do in their own kitchens. There in lies the problem. In fact I don't know half of them at all as we don't work at the same time. What would possess me to eat anything they baked?

It's no secret that I'm a dog person. I have never liked cats but there are some that I can live with. For example Josh, a fabulous Maine Coon cat my friends have who doesn't seem to be interested in walking on the kitchen counters. As he goes outside there isn't a litter box that he tramps around in and then tracks throughout the house. Then there are other people I know who border on being collectors and have multiple animals and litter boxes exerting zero control over any of it. On several occasions I have entered their homes only to be face to face with their newly adopted stray sitting on the counter licking dirty litter off it's paws and scratching it's fur out. In the immortal words of Bill The Cat: AAACK! No I will never, ever, ever eat anything these friends cook! NEVER!

In the interest of honesty and fairness I have several friends who have multiple dogs and are not what I would call tidy. Their idea of clean and my idea of clean are worlds apart. And I'm no neatnik! When there are dog fur tumbleweeds blowing about every room, when stray hairs are in the pots and pans even though they are inside the cabinets, when every piece of fabric in the place looks like it needs to go to the groomer, when the cob webs stuck to the ceiling are also shedding, and that foul odor in the fireplace is melting fur... it goes without saying, I'm not eating there! By the way, my dogs (poodles) don't shed.

There are some people who lack food preparation etiquette. Some have a specialized type of blindness that doesn't allow them to see the food stuck on their pots and pans from the last three meals they cooked. They lick the spoon and put it back in the cake batter, they stick their fingers in the sauce to taste it several times without washing. They drop the spoon on the floor, pick it up, blow on it, and wipe it on their shirt or pants before using it to stir the soup.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE FIVE SECOND RULE!

Does it seem extreme to you? I don't think it is. I have issues with my best friend and even some members of my immediate family who think it is cute for the dogs to give them "kisses". Do you realize what they eat and lick and sniff and ... OH GOD NO!

Why am I friends with these people? I don't eat at their houses: they eat at mine.