I resisted posting, but I have been thinking about this frequently since it happened...so...

yesterday at day care, some kid dared my kid to eat bird seed off a bird feeder, and she did it. She is 5.
The bird seed was pasted on with soy butter.

My thoughts are going not to spoiled food she consumed, but to all the germs that must be deposited there, both from birds but also raccoons. I know, I know.
Full disclosure- I am a periodic rabies worrier, prompted by years of ridiculous run-ins with wildlife, i.e. getting into my house, getting into my car, leaving a giant shit latrine under my deck. I live in the USA in an area where rabies is not at epidemic levels, but we are on the border of a state with a lot of raccoon rabies.

This is the deal...rabies can live a while on a damp surface like soy butter. (like maybe 24 hours) The feeder was out in the sun, but it was not particularly hot yesterday. Of course, being a hypochondriac, I know a lot about rabies. Like how few studied there really are about it. Like about the nonbite transmission of rabies. Like how it passed from a surface in at least one case. How it is known to spread orally (from breastmilk!!). Like how incredibly unlikely transmission this way is. Like how it would literally be 1 in a katrillion for her to pick up rabies from the birdseed.

She's my little girl though.

Why would you not worry about this? The thing about hypochondria is that the statistical improbability isn't a compelling argument for a mind that wants to catastrophize. I feel like I just have to sit here for 3 months and wait (and it's not even over then because of the incubation period, but a lot less probable).

Maybe stories of other people eating ridiculous stuff would help me. Part of my HA, I think, is feeling like I am the only one dumb enough for this stuff to happen to. Maybe it's a way for me to punish myself, or demean myself.

But, then there's that part of the brain that says, your kid just ate god knows what that could give her any number of gnarly and possible fatal diseases!!!! It's like an endless loop.