When people ask about my OCD as if I’m being patently unreasonable, I wonder how they are able to ignore so much. Take, for example, the guy in a public restroom whose phone was lying on the floor of the stall, between his feet, while he went about his business.

As I washed my hands, I watched in the mirror as his right hand occasionally dipped into view beneath the stall door, between wipes, to swipe between apps.

His friends probably joke about how he always needs to clean his phone’s screen. Little do they know

This made me think of the three times I’ve seen three different people at a neighborhood bar I used to frequent—a nice place, if a bit smokey, and rowdy when the Predators or Bears are playing—get a new cigarette from their own or someone else’s pack, place it to their lips, but let it slip as they try to light it, only to then pick it up off the floor and place back in their mouths as if nothing at all were wrong.

I mean you, the middle-aged man wearing yoga pants with “DIVA” stenciled on your ass who was searching for the perfect batch of wild onions

As batches of freshly spritzed wild onions tumbled to the dirty floor of the Kroger that always smells of sour milk—spilled somewhere, everywhere but never mopped up—you were undeterred, laser-focused on your goal.

I had no idea what your criteria were, but they must have been fierce as you tore through the angled, shoulder-height shelf. In your movements, I saw the Swedish Chef, though the screaming gibberish only resounded between your ears.

Your grocery shopping, which resembled someone turning a compost pile, went on for *literally* two minutes. Unable to look away, I watched. After you scooped up the batches from the floor and stuffed them back on the shelf, you saw me looking, and snapped, “What?”

I had hesitated selecting plums and pears, wondering how many of both you’d let roll around the seemingly never mopped linoleum. I’d guess it was my face, which frequently has a mind of its own, that made you snap. But before I could say anything, you were rummaging through the kale. And by “rummaging,” I mean “making it rain” that superfood. There were many things I would have said, if you only had the ears to hear.

But I forewent fruit this trip as you, Mr. Cross-Contamination, added unknown “spices” to the salads of unsuspecting shoppers.