Yesterday I was at a coffee shop. After sitting at the only available table, I noticed the couple at the next table was busy with an activity normally left for the privacy of one’s own home. I might have smiled, perhaps blushed, if they were young lovers enjoying “face” time. Instead, the twenty-something woman proceeded with great gusto to clean up blackheads on her fellow’s neck. I moved to the other side of the table, turning my back, angry and frustrated that I felt powerless to say anything. The young woman provided a play-by-play of her zit conquests, even leaving their table to get more serviettes. I choked down my meal and left. How might I have better dealt with this?

I don’t know what you’re complaining about. She was using serviettes rather than wiping zit-goop on the tablecloth. What more do you expect?

Have you ever been to the orangutan exhibit at the zoo? It’s great fun. The orangutans — bored out of their trees — spend copious time grooming each other. And they’re good at it; with their opposable thumbs, they can grab the tiniest bug out of each other’s ears, toes, butts, wherever. What’s more, they love to carefully examine the little insects — nits, ants, slugs whatever — along with bits of excrement and other effluvia they extract from each other’s fur; you’ll see them holding their tiny treasures up to the light, gazing yearningly — just before they pop them in their mouths. It’s delightful, really — and could only be more so if orangs had the verbal technology to provide a running commentary like you endured. “Ooh, look, a dung-beetle. Yum.”

Orangutans are apes. So, sadly, were the pimple-people across from you.

Now, I know this will irritate the “animal-rights” types who regularly excoriate my insistence that, ethically speaking, there are different rules for animals than for people. Yes, yes, I know we’re animals too, and in general what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. But here’s the thing: behaviour that’s OK for orangutans behind bars at the Metro Zoo is not OK in a coffee shop — even if it’s Timmies. Orangs don’t get lattes at 10:30 every morning — and people don’t get to pick their zits (or nits, for that matter) anywhere except the privacy of their own homes. Preferably in the washroom. Preferably alone.

Stop it, people. Stop clipping your nails at the office. Stop putting on lipstick in your car mirror while waiting at a stoplight. Stop wiping your nose on restaurant napkins that the server must pick up. Stop tweezing (is that a verb?) your eyebrows while waiting for your burger. Stop scratching your butt where I can see you. Stop talking on your cellphone at the urinal. And stop squeezing pimples, plucking off scabs or routing out your nose anywhere, except behind a locked door.

Gentle Revolted Reader, you wonder if you could have handled this better?

Nope. Chiding them would be like telling an orangutan she shouldn’t eat the bug she snatched off her mate’s left testicle. Public zit-poppers are not well disposed to thoughtful dialogue. Better to fume silently than get punched in the nose.

Hemorrhaging in a coffee shop is as revolting as pimple-pinching.

Send your questions to star.ethics@yahoo.ca .

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