Slurping.

I’d like to first say that I first entitled the post “slurp” and that doing so, made me giggle and think of a personal joke, made me feel pleased.

But onto the subject at hand, shall we? The other day on Myspace, a lovely humorous young lady wrote a bulletin about how much she hated to hear the sounds of slurping as one is eating—and I completely, positively, 100% can relate. My own personal hell would definitely include hearing the noises of my father’s slurping (I am convinced it is worse than anybody else’s), loud manic gum chewing, and sharp breathing noises.

When on my way to work, sitting peacefully on the train, either reading, or getting ready to enter into a zen-like state for pleasant little catnap–there is nothing worse than being interrupted by someone chewing their gum so loudly that my entire body is stiff, yet crawling at the same time. It is always at those times when my mp3 player is low on battery and I must be tortured the entire way. Loud sighs, and quick glances back never do anything. They are probably chewing so loudly and into their own little pig world they notice little, if anything else but the little ball of terror in their mouth.

I wrote her back of course:

My father..slurps…EVERYTHING. He slurps friggin bread for god’s sake. He slurps pasta. He slurps mashed potatoes. Name a food you think would be physically impossible to slurp–and he will amaze you with his ability to not only slurp it–but make the most god awful slurping noise known to man as he does it.

If something is dry–he will add water to it and microwave it in a bowl and then slurp it like a soup. He claims he will choke on the food if it is a) not excruciatingly hot and b) it is not slurped. He also has hearing loss and when he was fit with hearing aids–he hated the noise of his own slurping and chewing he took them off. You know it’s bad when you rather be deaf than hear your own self eat.

My father isn’t the only one, and thankfully I don’t see him often to be subjected to the horric noises that comes out of his mouth–but anytime I hear slurping or disgustingly loud gum chewing–I wish it were socially acceptable to flip the [f] out and scream at these people. Why should we suffer for the sake of politeness?

UGH.

Really. It annoys me. Why is it more socially acceptable to eat like a caveman/woman then to say something about it? I am sure if I made a comment to a stranger about how their horrendous eating habits would even make a starving person pass on a big bowl of pasta — that person would probably curse me out, or look at me with shock as they place a hand on their chest and open their eyes wide as they spit out the words, “Exccuuusee Me!?” Thinking about the possibility of that annoys me even.

If you are guilty of slurping, loud chewing, and very obnoxiously loud (quiet is OK) cell phone talking –please just stop. Thanks.