Scrambled, beaten and flushed by Secret Society for the Disgusting

I HAVE decided I am not for this world. Either that or it's the end of the year and I have had it up to here with the rest of humanity.

111210 salt

I HAVE decided I am not for this world. Either that or it's the end of the year and I have had it up to here with the rest of humanity.

There I am in a five-star hotel on a Sunday having breakfast and reading the papers, and a couple in their 60s sit at the next table.

As I sip my tea I become aware of a background noise that is gathering pace and volume. What is that macabre jungle sound that beats towards me? A clink clink knyack knyack sound.

I swivel slightly in my chair and there in full flight is this couple eating loudly. Eating loudly! Scrambled eggs!

Scrambled eggs? Why is it necessary to clink a knife and fork into scrambled eggs?

Scrambled eggs do not require cutting with such force that the knife is clinked into the china plate below. Or is my experience with scrambled eggs different to everyone else?

And the knyack knyack? Well, that is of course the disgusting sound of scrambled eggs being masticated by an open-mouthed chewer.

I could perhaps, perhaps, forgive this in a child. But this clink clink, shovel shovel, knyack knyack from sixtysomethings is intolerable.

If I am ever thrown into Guantanamo Bay and interrogated by the CIA they would not have to look far to find my weakness. Just have one of their burly agents sit down in front of me to eat scrambled eggs in a disgusting manner and I would divulge everything. Everything.

Just make the noise stop.

If this inability to cope with what can only be described as the disgustingness of others was a one-off, I wouldn't be so worried.

But I seem to be surrounded. Do you think there is a Secret Society for the Disgusting that has targeted me? I don't think so. I know so. They have agents everywhere.

How about earlier in the year while I was at the washbasin in a public bathroom and a mobile phone rang out from inside one of the cubicles.

Not that this is unusual. Phones have a habit of ringing at the darnedest of times. It will ring out or the owner will turn it to silent. Surely. You know what I am about to say, don't you?

"Hello."

Sure enough, what ensued was the onset of a full-on conversation. Or at least I assume it was a full-on conversation because I didn't stick around to listen in. Not that I would have had to listen hard, because this conversation was being transmitted to the entire bathroom from a vantage point deep inside that cubicle.

As I left the bathroom a number of philosophical questions sprang to mind. Is there a moral or ethical obligation by a called person to inform the caller of their circumstances?

Is there a hygiene issue in handling a mobile phone from inside a toilet cubicle? Does it make a difference if it's not a hand-held phone but a Bluetooth ear-piece?

Who cares, why would anyone conduct a telephone conversation from within a public toilet? And yet people clearly do. And it bothers me.

I have no idea who is behind the Secret Society for the Disgusting, but they are doing a fantastic job in promoting their evil cause.

I suspect all of this stems from a shift in our collective thinking. For more than half a century we have been told we are special to such a degree that the individual no longer has "vision" of anyone else. All we can see now is ourselves. If you are at the centre of society then you are not obligated to think about anyone else.

And this means you can eat scrambled eggs as loudly as you wish, and you can conduct an animated telephone conversation from inside a toilet cubicle. But it doesn't make it right. Please, please make the knyack knyack sound stop.

KPMG Partner Bernard Salt is also an adjunct professor at Curtin University Business School

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