There was a time, years ago, when I feared many of my meals were poisoned. My consolation was that the mere thought of suspecting poison in the food would neutralize it, make it safe for consumption. Well, I ought to have suspected poison in every dish then, just to be safe, right? There must have been something else. I think that suspecting poison when there was none lessened the neutralizing ability of suspecting poison when there was some. And I knew my adversaries were smarter than to poison every meal.