So … I’m trying to figure something out.
Are human beings essentially insane monkeys who can’t be trusted to find their own butts with both hands, a flashlight and a GPS that communicates with space satellites?
Or are lawyers just arrogant morons who THINK the rest of us are insane monkeys?
Here’s how I came to wonder about all of this.
Like most men, early on in my marriage I gave up on being able to peacefully co-exist with women and children in terms of sharing a bathroom.
So I built one for me in the basement.
Sure I have to share space with the washer and dryer and a collection of power tools, but I did not have to share space with
a) A wife.
b) A daughter.
c) 1,386 jars, tubes and bottles containing shampoo, conditioner, make-up and a variety of lotions and unguents the practical purpose of which escapes me.
(I know. I went and did it again. I whipped out one of them Google words … unguents …. kind of word most of us read, swear a little bit because it sounds kind of familiar, and then have to hit the internet to find a definition. I wrote the word before I realized what I’d done and thought,) “Now that sounds like the right word. Looks like the right word. But I’ll be damned if I know what it actually means.”
So I Googled it and sure enough it’s the right word in the right context. So if you know what the word means, good for you. I didn’t. Not really. If you don’t know, well. If Google’s good enough for me …)
I once asked my son what he did to avoid the woman mess in the main bathroom, and he said, “Mostly I just pee in the yard.”
Note to prospective visitors: Wear shoes at all times in and around my home.
But the other day I felt a rather urgent call while in the vicinity of the upstairs lady bathroom and I dashed in.
And made the mistake of lingering.
There was a curling iron abandoned in the sink.
I picked it up and went to put it away until this fluttering label attached to the cord caught my attention.
The warning label, of course.
Everything comes with a warning label, these days.
And here’s what the warning label said: “For external use only.”
What the ….
Seriously, I was thrown. Flummoxed.
So I took the curling iron to my wife and said, “The warning label on this thing says, ‘For external use only.’ ”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s a curling iron,” I said. “I don’t get it. There is only one use for this and it’s an external use.”
She began to laugh.
“The shape doesn’t suggest anything to you?” she said.
“No.”
She laughed harder. “I never thought I’d see the day when my mind was dirtier than yours,” she said.
And then I figured it out.
And was actually kind of horrified. Had somebody actually … you know … and to some ill effect that led to a lawsuit? Or did a lawyer look at a curling iron and think hey, that’d make a pretty good … and then write up a warning label?
Things got even worse a couple of days later. We’re redoing our kitchen, which apparently is going to take more meetings, technical drawings and logistical planning than the second invasion of Iraq. (Although, in defence of my wife and the decorator, the Pentagon didn’t have to worry about colour co-ordinating backsplash tiles with appliances.)
And the stove got delivered.
And here are just some of the warnings that come with our stove:
1) Don’t stand on the top of the stove.
2) Don’t put laundry on the stove elements.
3) Don’t spray insecticide on the top of the stove.
4) If you’ve got a bottle of frozen Coke and want to thaw it out … don’t put it in the stove.
5) When cooking, use a pot or pan. Don’t just throw your steak directly onto the element.
6) Don’t dry a wet newspaper in the oven.
7) Don’t punch the stove. (No. Seriously. I am not making that up. The exact phrase in the instruction manual is: “Do not strike the door or the inside or the appliance.”)
Now, back in the day when my testosterone levels were higher and my self-control lower and my blood alcohol levels often high enough that you could get drunk just by standing next to me … I admit to having punched a wall or two, which is why to this day I’m pretty good at patching drywall.
But I never, no matter how crazy-drunk-angry-insane, punched a major appliance.
And how do you wind up punching a major appliance, anyway?
How angry can a fella get at a stove? Or do you start out punching small appliances, like blenders and toasters, and work your way up?
And who picks their newspaper up on their front stoop and says to themselves, “My, what an unfortunate turn of events. My newspaper is too damp to read. I know! I will turn the oven to 450 degrees and put the newspaper in there!”
And then sue the manufacturer of the stove when the paper bursts into flames?
Is it only a matter of time before you buy a chef’s knife for the kitchen and it comes with a warning: “Do not insert into eye sockets or anal cavity?”
This matters to me.
I’m OK living in a world in which lawyers are sick, twisted, evil folk who make up stuff like this so they can get paid.
I mean, it’s sort of a job requirement, isn’t it?
I’m not OK living in a world where the rest of us are actually doing this kind of insane crap.
Makes a fella want to punch a stove or something.
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