I can hear your mouth, yet you aren't even talking

I work in a cube. It's a large cube.

Walking around around lunchtime is always rather disgusting in a public setting. Fortunately, nobody on my floor microwaves fish in the microwave, which I know happens in a lot of places. (this is truly a disgusting, filthy and rude thing for anyone to do)

I always buy my field greens downstairs in our cafeteria. The cafeteria is generally pretty underused, and I'm surprised that it even exists. One time when I went down to the cafeteria to get my salad, an overwhelming smell of death, toxic waste, and dirty womens' restroom wafted over to me as I stood in line waiting to pay. It was so foul, I thought maybe something had crawled up and died right under my nose.

I asked the cashier "What the HELL is that smell?!" as I crunched up my face. She said "fish in microwave" and laughed. That's not funny; stop laughing. That is foul, and anyone who has the gall to bring fish and nuke it in public, deserves to be punched in the throat.

Before my dieting, I always had a salad. BUT, I'd top it with lots of goodies, and some junk. So, I'd have a huge bed of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, chick peas, and of course, a about 5 scoops of Chow Mein noodles, those little brown crunchy things that look bizarre but are actually quite tasty. They're super high in fat: that is exactly why they are actually quite tasty.

Now, I just buy lettuce, maybe some veggies for later for the gym, and bring it upstairs with my Diet Coke. I throw on my dry fried tofu, some garlic chili sauce, and my oil-based dressing. It takes about 15 minutes to eat, fills me up nicely, and I'm set for the next few hours.

But when I walk around during lunch hour, it's amazing how when people eat, there is a lot of audio involved. I just walked to the water cooler, and walked by a woman who just returned from maternity leave, which seemed like forever (must be nice to get paid to not work). I hear the "moistness" and the sound of her chewing with her mouth open made me want to puke the salad I had just finished. It wasn't a fluke, on the way back to my desk from the water cooler, it was still going on. I don't to hear you masticating your turkey and lettuce and mayo. I can hear that from 10 feet away.... hasn't your husband said anything?

There's a guy behind me who after he eats (which is all day), he smacks his teeth, for what reason, I don't know. It sounds like someone is making kissy kissy noises. Also gross.

And yesterday on the bus after work, I start hearing this disgusting mouth smacking noise. On the BUS. I realize the old man in front of me is reliving the Big Dig in his mouth with a toothpick. He was digging so hard and far into his mouth, half of his fist was in his mouth. This continued the 1.1 miles back to my apartment. It was so obscene and nauseating, I think I ate a smaller dinner because of it.

I've also noticed a lot of young (and sometimes middle-aged) women chewing gum like they are grazing cattle at a farm. I don't care if you are Ivy League, Magna Cum Laude, won the Fields Medal last spring, and perform neural surgery in your spare time: if you chew gum like a cow, you really, truly, make yourself look really, really dumb.... like a bimbo. Excessive gum cracking, also not going to win you any respect from colleagues. I wish girls would stop this nonsense.

Everyone, please be aware your mouth makes noises, when you chew gum, when you eat, when you are ice-picking your teeth. And please stop.