[cheebacheeba]

Flies...can't stand goddamn flies.
If I'm eating outdoors, and one of them so much as lands on the corner of a plate/cup/glass, I'll discard said implement and contents. I know...probably over-reaction, but I cannot continue to eat.
Roaches, not as big a problem for me...I mean, not a problem that occurs a lot anyway, I don't like to eat out much, and their chances of sneaking up on a plate I'm using are pretty remote.
However, if one DID make it, of course I'd have to throw away anything I was eating at the time.
I literally cannot bring myself to eat food that has had even remote-vicinity contact with pests to my knowledge.
In fact...I think pest potential (along with my all-time favourite, crowd hatred and the mistrust of the hygeine practices of the majority of people in the food service industry) is one of the larger reasons I don't like to eat out much at all...I guess studying food preparation/hygeine modules probably made this whole "phobia" deal even worse for me...
I'm pretty anti-contamination.
If I've seen a roach (even a small one) on my kitchen bench, I'll thoroughly wash and disinfect the whole surrounding area before so much as putting a cutting board upon it.
This kind of thing has been going on for a while for me...I think it's because my stupid-ass mother didn't pay the proper attention she should've while cooking this one time when I was 7 years old...she was making her regular "vegitarian" slop (not that there's anything wrong with vego food...but if you can't do it right, stick to salads, because 9 times out of 10, your vegitarian food WILL suck balls, bigtime...yup...she's the reason I started to cook for myself at around 8), and I hadda eat it...midway through this garbage, there is was, a roach. A roach in my food.
I suppose at least it was intact...but yknow what? I remember really hating her at the time for that...my only consolation (a small one, considering the crisis situation) was that this all happened in front of her (then) new boyfriend, and she seemed pretty damn humiliated and even started crying - which I've thought back to and laughed at many a time...
I don't hate her or anything, but goddamn, their oughta be a law against some people ENTERING a kitchen.
I think from pretty much that point onwards my food paranioa began...in fact, just one of many incidents and weirdnesses I visited upon myself - Once when I was 11 years old, I even turned myself off eating one of my favourite breakfast cereals for a few years (coco-pops, much like coco-puffs) because I successfully convinced myself in my paranoia that if there happened to be some kind of pests or rodents around, there could be either mouse/rat shit in there or roach eggs, and I wouldn't be the wiser about it...and examining each individual fragment of your favourite cereal? That there's a whole lotta NO fun.

That said, the only time ants have been a problem for me is when I was at college a couple months ago eating a sausage roll...had it kept in its paper bag and plastic cover still fully on and only opened at the end as usual...I was sitting on a low brick wall outside talking to the fellow chefs, and put it down for no longer than 2 minutes...picked it up and the thing was swarming with them...of course, then I had to throw that out too.

ok...that's all from me.