Just because we’re in the same room doesn’t mean we have to talk to each other and please, chew with your fucking lips closed and stop breathing through your goddamn mouth.

The dedication for this piece has been omitted for fear of a potential lawsuit; however, it applies to all of you mouth-breathers out there who eat pickles.

In our daily routine we’re forced to share space with people on a regular basis; in line at the grocery store, the seats next to us while we travel or the close proximity of restaurant tables. Nothing is worse than being forced to share those spaces while someone smacks while they chew.  The thought alone is enough to drive me into a rage. I don’t understand a person’s compulsion to chew with their mouth open. How is the sound alone tolerable? How does it continue when bits of food fall from their mouth? Have they ever thought of taking smaller bites?

Honestly, I can’t stand it. How does that habit develop? At some point, most people will have eaten in front of someone, so why is the smacking never addressed? Why hasn’t anyone told these people to chew with their fucking mouth closed?

Quite a while ago, I ended a friendship with someone because of their mouth breathing and smacking. I took their plate one late afternoon while they were smacking away on their food and brought it to the front door. At first, this person looked at me with confusion. The weather was nice enough to eat outside and it was obvious they assumed that was what we were about to do. They even pushed themselves from the couch with a half-smile on their face. I opened the door, put the plate outside on the porch next to the dog dish, and told them to eat outside if they couldn’t chew with their mouth closed. Their eyebrows perked and their smile became a shocked, parted lip expression. When I sat back down on the couch, they walked through the door and never returned or spoke to me again. Perhaps this was a bit harsh, but then again, after the age of twelve, nobody should have to ask another person to chew with their mouth closed.

The sound is excruciating. I would rather listen to the sound of my fingernails being pulled from my fingers–that flesh stretching tear, than have to listen to the gumming smacks of someone chewing with their mouth open. I’ve tried smacking. Try it right now. Try to open and close your mouth in a way that creates such a vile sound. It takes EFFORT to chew in a way that creates such sounds! The solution: I think a brick to the fucking teeth would end that problem permanently.

Mouth breathing is another problem, but not nearly as bad as smacking. Mouth breathing is a problem for a different reason. While smacking is auditory, the annoying implications of mouth breathing seem to be the visual intake of a person gazing into oblivion with their mouth open. Maybe their head is tilted, too, for added Neanderthal likeness. In some cases it’s amusing. That is until the mouth breathing is followed by smacking.

Acceptable times to breath through the mouth: childbirth, strenuous exercise, snorkeling, during illness, and after someone hits you in the teeth because you were chewing with your mouth open.

“Silence is endearing. I don’t always have something to say. Stop trying to make me. If I had something on my mind that I wanted you to know about, I would tell you. Stop asking me what I’m thinking about.”

Enough said.