Johnny Tubesteak's Periodically Updated Discourse

My wife scolded me the other day for leaving my toenail clippings on the coffee table.  According to her, the coffee table “has to be about the worst place to leave your disgusting toenail clippings.”

While I agree that the coffee table is a bad place to leave toenail clippings, I don’t think that it’s the worst place to leave them.  To prove my point, I will now list five places that are worse for leaving toenail clippings than the coffee table.

1. The Dining Room Table.  Imagine Thanksgiving Day, and Grandma asks you to pass the salt.  You quickly scan the table looking for it, when you spot it — right between the yams and the toenail clippings.  I’d say that’s worse than the coffee table.
2. The Ice Cube Tray.  Imagine it’s Friday night, and you are fixing yourself a drink.  You drop an ice cube from the ice cube tray into your drink, and immediately notice that there are toenail clippings in the ice cube.  I think you’d be peeved, moreso than if you had found toenail clippings on the coffee table.
3. In a Pot of Leftover Soup.  When you unwittingly bite into a spoonful of toenail clippings, I doubt you will say, “Well, at least these toenail clippings weren’t left on the coffee table.”
4. In a Bag of Rice.  Toenail clippings look a lot like rice.  Imagine the frustration you’ll feel having to sort through a bag of rice to pull out the toenail clippings every time you want to cook a batch of szechuan tofu.  I anticipate that it would be more frustrating than finding toenail clippings on the coffee table.
5. In Someone’s Jar of Fingernail Clippings.  Picture this:  you’re feeling nostalgic, and you want to relive old memories by going through the jar of fingernail clippings you’ve been saving for the last 30 years.  When you open the jar, however, you realize that it has been tainted by someone else’s toenail clippings.  You know that the toenail clippings are in there, but they don’t look different enough from the fingernail clippings to really pick them out.  Suddenly, your jar of fingernail clippings seems a bit gross.  I believe you would say to yourself, “This is much, much worse than finding toenail clippings on my coffee table.”

There may be even more places out there that would be worse for leaving toenail clippings than a coffee table; I’m not sure.  What I am sure of, though, and what I am fairly confident I have proven today, is that the coffee table is not the worst place for a person to leave his/her toenail clippings.