Status Anxiety

26 July 2008

Should I have forced myself to accept a diseased prisoner’s licked spoon?

In America, some people resolve such dilemmas by asking: What would Jesus do? In my case, I asked: What would Prince Charles do? Following this rule, I found myself moving in lockstep with a Zulu dance troupe in the maximum security wing, playing football with a young man convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl and assuming a concerned expression as a former member of the South African Defense Force told me how traumatised he was by the various war crimes he had committed in Angola.

However, even Prince Charles’s impeccable manners might have failed him if he had been in the situation I found myself in on my final day. I was sitting down to breakfast in the juvenile wing, staring apprehensively at a large bowl of white goo, when I discovered I had forgotten to get myself a spoon. ‘Here, have mine,’ said my neighbour, a charming young man convicted of aggravated robbery. He then licked it clean — something he considered a courtesy, no doubt — and handed it to me.

Just as I was about to dive in, a prison officer swept past and deposited an orange and a hard-boiled egg in front of him. What was that about?

‘I’ve got TB,’ explained the boy, matter-of-factly. ‘Prisoners with TB are given a special diet to help us fight the disease.’

What would Prince Charles do? Like most British schoolchild, I was given a BCG injection, but would it prove effective against every strain of tuberculosis? How long can the mycobacteria that cause TB live outside the human body? And just how offended would this boy be if I refused to use his spoon?

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Fergus Pickering

July 25th, 2008 10:32am Report this comment

Don't be ridiculous. You're a hack, not a saint.

Victoria

July 25th, 2008 11:11am Report this comment

Toby, You did the right thing. If you felt you had hurt the boy's feelings (not as important a consideration as exposing yourself to not only potentially resistant strains of TB but perhaps many other pathogens), you could have used the opportunity to explain to him about contagion and contamination. I am sure if he understood he would not have wanted to expose you to danger. And if he didn't care about that, you still would be dong the right thing.

Timothy Weller

July 25th, 2008 2:35pm Report this comment

I am an Australian journalist now working in PR here in London, however my roots are from outback Queensland Australia in a mining community mainly derived from Aboriginals. Many a time I had to "keep a stiff upper lip" and accept the spoon while in a less than appealing hygienic situation socialising within an Aboriginal culture in creek beds or whatnot, but I think this lad actually having TB is a step too far! Don't feel ashamed.

Val Manchee

July 25th, 2008 3:13pm Report this comment

I wouldn't have used a dirty spoon if the Queen herself had handed it to me - there are limits with regard to demeaning yourself for someone else's benefit. Ans so what if his feelings were hurt? Did he care about his victims when he committed his crime?

Kevin Dunn

July 25th, 2008 4:02pm Report this comment

Only in modern Britain would a person be ashamed of their own good sense and of not having done something both totally stupid and, in the last analysis, totally selfish.

Douglas Wagner

July 25th, 2008 4:12pm Report this comment

The choice you describe is a false dichotomy. Your lie revealed your self-centeredness to the boy. In my experience most young people are far brighter than some of us give them credit for. I expect he was teasing (or perhaps, testing) you.
Knowing his condition, I expect he would have understood if you had thanked him for the spoon, and then explain you prefer not to use it because of his TB.

Stephen Chiaroni

July 26th, 2008 1:48am Report this comment

Great story! While trekking in Nepal in the 1980's a friend and myself stayed a night with a family in a village. "Dinner" comprised rice, a hard-boiled egg and tea. We watched horrified as the father, with filthy fingers, peeled the shells from the eggs, then graciously handed one to each diner. Hepatitis was rife. My friend and I both just wordlessly left our egg uneaten. It was a meagre meal, our hosts were probably offended, but our livers survived.