One evening, on a regular, cautious commute on the train, I happened across a scene which would make both Howie Mandel and me cringe. I entered a nearly empty train car when it was normally supposed to be packed. I then noticed that only half of the car was empty, except for one man whose smell I just then noticed. Suddenly, he began ripping hearty coughs, which ejected particles so dense that they blurred out anything visible behind them.

“You still have time!” I thought quickly to myself.

I made a half-turn and went for the exit, but it was too late. The train car doors closed agonizingly too soon before I could remove myself from that germ chamber. I quickly went over to the other half of the car where the other survivors stood. I waited there as the train sped off to our certain death. Typically, the next stop was on the other side of one of the longer intervals and would take about 15 minutes before getting there. They were the longest 15 minutes of my life.

I watched that old man from 50 feet away as he hacked, choked, and spit gallons of pure germs all over the train. I saw particles fly out of his mouth and settle cozily onto the handles which people grab constantly. Thinking about how many germs would spread should anyone touch that handle brought a tear to my eye.

[Kids] + [Pool of plastic balls which never get washed] = [A germ sewer]

While many kids saw this as a playground item full of fun and adventure, I found it quite horrifying even at a young age. I knew of the dangers the ball pits presented, yet I was too young and naive enough to really understand them. That is, until this one incident brought it to my attention!

One day, around the age of eight or nine, I was playing innocently at a McDonald’s Playplace (or similar). I had wandered a little too close to the pit, and then BAM! I felt the sweaty, peonic arm of my peer grab my wrist and drag me into the abominable sea of germs. The flash of panic and emotion swept over me too quickly to comprehend.

And it was there, while submersed in those malicious microbes, that all time stood still, and I had an omniscient view of the entire pool. What I saw cannot be properly articulated, but I can best describe it this way:

As the veil of my terror lifted, I saw a universe of brightly colored translucent balls. And around them orbited alien creatures, which I learned then were germs and harmful bacteria, as densely packed as the dust in Saturn’s rings. Occasionally, a lost soul of a child wandered by, and the microbes orbiting around them fused with the ones from the planets and increased in density by some large exponent.

My puny mind could no longer handle this much knowledge and my link broke, only to return to the terror of my physical being. You’ve never seen a kid get out of a noogie so quickly.