He bolted out of the car as I picked it up and started to unfurl to blow it up, thinking it was a balloon. He grabbed it, put it in the trash bin, told me NOT TO TOUCH MY FACE OR ANYTHING, and marched me inside the library to the mens room, to scrub my hands with that dispenser powder and steaming hot water. He also found some bleach and poured that on my hands.
I smelled like a swimming pool for the rest of the evening and everyone was staring at me until he came to get me a while later. He didn't get into any 'details' on the ride home, but warned me about picking strange things up from then on. I didn't.
Thank God I had Mike Roe to teach me those things before I got AIDS ON MY LIPS!
Hell, when I was a kid,k I used to pick up gum off the sidewalk and chew it.......(especially if it was pink). My mother caught me once...and from then on, when I asked for a penny for gum...I got it!