Holy Cookies

I went to a Chinese bakery with two girls from America. We picked out some sandwich cookies and took them back to my room.

The cookies were very dry and crumbled everywhere. At first, we tried to contain the crumbs with our hands, napkins, and the trashcan. We finally gave up and let the crumbs fall everywhere.

Due to an ill-timed series of events, we had to leave my room without thoroughly cleaning up the mess. My roommate likes to keep the room very clean, but I knew she could forgive me this once, especially since I planned to vacuum up the crumbs as soon as possible.

When I got back to the room later, the first thing my roommate asked me was "Is this bread on the floor?" I began to apologize and explain that I was going to vacuum soon, but I saw she already had the vacuum cleaner out. She cut me off again with "Is this bread on the floor?"

This time I tried to explain that it was not exactly bread, but cookies. She didn't want to hear any of it. "Is this bread on the floor?" she asked again.

I gave up and just said that it was bread.

My roommate turned the vacuum cleaner on, and I tried to take it from her and clean it up myself. That's when she turned the vacuum cleaner off and explained to me what was going on.

In her home country of Kazakhstan, bread is considered sacred. My roommate said that from the time she was a child, she learned that bread should never be on the floor. I felt bad simply for leaving the room a mess, but the fact that I defiled her room made me feel terrible. And then she wouldn't let me clean it up so I felt even worse.

Sometimes I drop a few small crumbs of bread on the floor. You know the kind where they're too small to pick up, but you can still see them? Well, I rub them into the carpet so she doesn't know.

Am I a horrible person?