So we've got disturbing search requests, more commonly known in the online world as "DSRs." I'm here tonight to talk to you about another DS- issue that hits a little closer to home and is something that you don't have to have a website to experience. I'm, of course, speaking of DSBs -- disturbing social behaviors.

DSBs can occur in any situation. You could find one at work, at the mall, on the road... everyone is susceptible, everyone is vulnerable. And once you've experienced it, it's a little hard to forget. For example, there was the girl who lived in my dorm during my freshman year of college. I heard so many complaints about her odd quirks from my friends, but the one that really caught my attention was the fact that she identified people by their feet. How did my friends know about this? Because she used to be able to correctly ID them as they walked by the bathroom stall she was using or as they sat down in the stall adjacent to hers. Then she used to strike up conversations with them. I may not know much, but I know this: there's just some times when talking with others is a little uncomfortable, and one of those times is when one or both of you is on the toilet.

At one of my jobs, I had the Boss From Hell. My co-workers all took pity on me since they saw her antics around the office and I was the only one who was working with her, but it took a long time before she was let go. She used to do very odd things, some of which led to the general assumption around the office that she was a Bag Lady -- she always dressed in the same clothing and it was often rumpled as if she had slept in it, she hoarded food in her office (especially the free food that the company would bring in for corporate meetings), she showed up late for work every day and sometimes didn't show up at all, at one point she radically changed her hairstyle and color so drastically in the space of an afternoon that we were all convinced it had to be a wig. And she fit the image quite well -- older, eccentric, kind of a strange accent... she was a Bag Lady. But one thing that really got to me was when she would stand in front of my cube to talk to me, and in the middle of the conversation, she'd start hiking up her stockings, which -- more often than not -- would have big gaping holes and rips in them to show off her wrinkly spotted legs and varicose veins. I almost started a collection around the office to buy her new pantyhose.

Then there was the obviously-older-than-child-age guy who picked his nose and ate his boogers in public. The guy who asked to borrow the compact of the woman sitting next to him on the subway so he could use the mirror to help himself see to squeeze the huge pimple on his forehead to the point of popping it. The woman on the plane who used her husband's Swiss Army knife to clip her fingernails and then eat them.

You know you've seen them, you know you've experienced them. You may have even perpetrated one or two of them by accident, or maybe even on purpose. But realize the anguish that you cause by doing these acts. People, it's up to you. Only you can stop DSBs.

This message was brought to you by the Committee to Stop Disturbing Social Behaviors.