I never thought I’d be one of those people so grossed out by something so common, but experience has led me to see the light and realize that this seemingly innocent item is actually a blight on our nation, if not our whole world. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the simple fact: Playdough is disgusting.

It’s not the mess, the crumbles of dough scattered across the table and the floor, pressed into seat cushions, rugs and buried deep in the heart of the tile grout. It’s not the inescapable blending, the miscegenation of colors into spectacular, chaotic rainbows before then turn, irreversibly, inevitably into balls of uniform gray.

No. It’s the hair.

I’ll let you get through your gag reflex before I continue.

There’s nothing enjoyable about pulling out a yellow-green-pink-blue lump of play-dough, streaked with red and orange, only to find that it is inextricably linked to the lump below it, and the lump below that, by a tiny strand of protein. You can try to get it out, but as I just explained this to you in the last sentence – it’s inextricable. Try to pay attention.

Even if you get one hair out, there are others, hundreds of others, tangled together, forming a matrix, binding the playdough in an evil network of disgustingness.

I’m not sure which is worse, the human hair or the pet fur. We have two cats and a dog. The slender threads that worm their way through our playdough invade from any number of sources and they cannot be defeated.

Once you have children, Playdough cannot be avoided, so I offer this not as a warning, but as a bitter prophecy.