You’re not sure what dog shit tastes like, but you can imagine. You want—how you want—to not imagine. You wake in the morning, your breath telling a germy story, and you wonder: Is this it? Is this what dog shit tastes like? How would you know if dog shit had touched your tongue? As you ready your breakfast, it occurs to you that perhaps your cereal is contaminated. There could be molecules of dog shit on your wheat bran (or Lucky Charms, or Corn Pops, or oatmeal—dog shit can travel anywhere; it has effortlessly circumvented all of United Airlines’ delays). You picked up dog shit with a plastic bag yesterday, the only barrier between you and it a thin orange film of non-biodegradable plastic. You remember learning, in seventh grade science class, that if you can smell something, then that something has made its way into your nasal cavity. As you stare at the wheat-like orbs drowning in your bowl, you contemplate the contamination.

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What did your hand touch, exactly? Could you smell what your hand touched? You want—you want the not. But your thoughts wander, imminently conjuring memories of turd shape, turd consistency, turd scent, turd size, the feel of jiggling warm soft creepy microbes whose only distance from your skin was a half-torn Kroger bag. After many hand washings, after many staredown sessions between you and the wheat orbs, you convince yourself that your soggy cereal is free of dog shit. It has to be free of dog shit.

But is it free of rat shit?