God knows how we got on the subject, but UD and I got to talking last night about how, as teenagers, we hadn’t really considered doing any of the things our parents seemed convinced we surely would do, the minute we left their sight for destinations no-parents-home, until they brought it up — and sometimes not even then. My mother, for example, cherished an unshakeable belief that, if a parent were not present (read: looming discouragingly), any gathering of adolescents numbering larger than one would automatically lunge, crazed, in the direction of the liquor cabinet; empty it; fill a flask with a Listerine-and-rubbing-alcohol-tini for the road; and drive a flaming Cadillac Seville through a crowded day-care center, murdering hundreds of tiny, innocent, soft-fontanelled infants with their careless gin-soaked anomie. Never mind the fact that, at fifteen, I didn’t drink because I hated the taste and dreaded throwing up so powerfully that I would never have put myself in the way of any possibility of doing so, or that I had the kind of friends who, offered the opportunity to joyride drunk with no chance of getting caught, would still have preferred to sit around writing one-act plays about what would happen if one of our more hated classmates got knocked up by Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies and had to marry him and live in that sad low-ceilinged apartment complex at the edge of town, stuck at home with a colicky baby too pointy to cuddle, glumly composing macaroni casseroles using the generic brand of hot dogs — the only kind they could afford, oh the humanity — while Pinhead carried on a blithely cruel affair with Julia, the Goth girl who worked with him at the deli counter of that crusty Acme supermarket in Berkeley Heights. And then she (the classmate, not Julia) got eaten by a half-man, half-boar that happened by sheerest coincidence to have the same name as our music teacher.

Needless to say, sharing our costume dramas with my mother would hardly have convinced her that I didn’t drink, but: not the point. The point is that I didn’t really consider drinking that big a part of adolescent socializing until Ma made me think everyone else my age had a Coors Light party ball stashed in their closets under the dirty clothes.

I got off the phone with UD last night and returned to my evening of carrot-and-stick media/cleaning fun times, which consisted of alternating odious household chores I’d avoided for all of 2006 so far with rewards like a Sopranos episode or downloading a new song from iTunes. Mop kitchen floor; “In Camelot”; clean stove; Pet Shop Boys. As I prepared to fire up the Tilex Mildew Root™ Penetrator & Remover, rubber-gloved, sunglassed, lumbering down the hall and booming out “fear me, for I am The Pene-tray-torrrrr” in a vaguely Germanic accent because you have to make your own fun in this life, a bold-faced sentence on the back of the bottle caught my eye, to wit: “It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.”

What the? Seriously, it would never have occurred to me to use the Tilex for anything other than killing mildew. …Okay, so I also did a Spider-Man imitation while using the Tilex, but only because the layout of my bathroom necessitates such an approach; should I expect a visit from the FBI now? Even though I followed all the other directions on the back? Which took a while, because the legal department at The Clorox Company managed to find seventy-three different ways to say that their product is corrosive enough to reduce a Hummer to a fizzing puddle of DNA-bending deuterium in about fifteen minutes? What exactly do they mean by “inconsistent with its labeling”? Because, before reading that, I’d just planned to spritz it on the tile, let it sit for five minutes, wipe it off, and rinse out the shower. Now, I feel obligated to use it as deodorant, or a Roman candle, just to see what the hell that instruction means.

…Do they mean “don’t put it in food”? Is that it? Because, yes, it is a “violation of Federal law” to poison people. Right? …And?

Labeling of that sort probably comes from the same tort-proofing instinct as the tag on your hair dryer that warns you in hysterical red block letters never to dry your hair in the bathtub, namely that you wouldn’t think people do that, but at least one person did do it, and that person’s family sued the hair dryer company, obviously, but seriously: did people ever do that? Did people sit in the tub and dry their hair at one time, possibly the same time at which it was considered beneficial to a head cold to smoke cigarettes? Why would you try to dry your hair when you are the most opposite of dry? Wouldn’t it make more sense to…well, I guess it didn’t, to one (late) person. The “if it gets knocked in the toilet by mistake, look out” warning is a bit more relatable, but honestly, don’t we all know this by now? Isn’t it the same as when the pre-previews what’s-it at the theater tells you not to smoke? Who still thinks you can smoke at the movies? “Refreshments are available in our lobby!” As opposed on to the roof, where I would have looked for them? At whom are these pronouncements directed — rumspringa kids?

Has it occurred to nobody else that perhaps the reason people sometimes behave so stupidly is because the world just expects them to, instead of assuming that everyone in a position to care about such things already knows you don’t let the baby play with a plastic bag from the dry cleaners? Could we not just assume, as a society, that if a product can get mildew out of cracks you can’t even see with the naked eye, it’s probably not a great idea to spray it on your pet or child? Do we need to be told?

I guess we do. But while I waited for the fumes to dissipate in the bathroom last night, instead of listening to a Sopranos commentary, I decided to inspect various other labels in my home to find out exactly how stupid the products I own have predicted I might be in their use.

The answer: rather stupid indeed, although the box of Ziploc baggies took a relatively live-and-let-live attitude, “recommending” that I not nuke them in the microwave or use them to store liquids, but it didn’t seem to care all that much. The roll of All-Purpose Jute Twine, however, is something of a drama queen. Said twine bills itself as “Extra Strong,” having “One Thousand & One Uses” (including, if I’m to believe the picture of the Golden Gate on the label, repair of suspension bridges). Not so fast, though: “Do not use in situations where personal safety could be endangered.” Such a vague warning probably covers all manner of idiotic honorable mentions in the Darwin Awards, thus protecting the twine company from liability, but the label goes on to say, “Do not use this product to secure large flat surfaces or objects which could ‘airplane.'” Not very helpful, really; I think it means “don’t tie a ping-pong table to the top of your car on a windy day and expect to cross the Pyrenees without something dumb happening,” but…it could just say that, then. But no, it concludes with, “Misuse could result in serious injury or death.” Yeah…we know, but…it says “all purpose.” It says “One Thousand & One Uses.” If one of those uses is not “swinging Tarzan-style between windows of neighboring skyscrapers,” perhaps you’d best make that plain…or just not bring up the death issue at all. Why tempt consumers to test the twine’s breaking strain by, say, tying it around a fat grey tabby and dangling the feline out the window above a busy street?

Moving on, then. The back of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser box goes on at some length — pretty accurately — about how awesome the ME is and how many different grody things it can rid you of, and then it handily tells you how flat and gnarly you should let the ME get before chucking it and using a new one. But then things get kooky in the “CAUTION” area. After an eminently reasonable warning about keeping them away from snacky kids and pets, there’s this: “Do not use on skin or other parts of the body. Using on skin will likely cause abrasions.” Well, yeah, it’s a pretty rou– wait, what “other parts of the body”? Because at first my mind went straight to “used it like a Stridex pad,” but then my mind went…somewhere else. Somewhere…kind of hairy. The box does use the word “wipe,” like, fifty times, so maybe it was an accident? Someone just…ran out of toilet paper? Augh, I can’t think about it anymore.

I’d much rather contemplate a toddler snacking on a Swiffer sheet, which is not a great idea in practice, but in theory is kind of cute, in an aggressive-approach-to-lint-control kind of way. But both the Swiffer box and the Bounce with Febreze box tell me to keep them away from toddlers and pets, lest hunger and fabric softening combine to create a tragedy, and this is actually not advice for the stupid. It’s advice for the owners of the stupid. Hobey is like Pepe Le Pew with the dryer sheets, and they try to hide inside my shirts, but he always finds them and tries to romance them, and they’re always like, “Oh, do fuck off,” and I have to scruff him and pry them loose from his besotted claws.

Less comprehensible is the implication that Kids Today huff Pam non-stick cooking spray: “Misuse by deliberately concentrating and inhaling the contents can be harmful or fatal.” Not to mention a shitty high, I’m guessing; it’s atomized canola oil. How Kitty Dukakis do you have to feel about things that you’d try to get stoned off that shit?

Maybe these directions exist for the post-recovery Reddi-Wip snorter, actually. Maybe, after years of whip-its, you need the bottle of Dial Daily Care antibacterial soap to issue instructions as follows: “pump into hands / later vigorously for at least 15 seconds / rinse and dry thoroughly.” Because if you can read, you probably have hand-washing down pretty well, or at least well enough that you don’t think you lather up and then walk, foamy and dripping, out of the bathroom. If you can read, the instruction “do not spray directly toward face” on the back of a bottle of Febreze is probably superfluous.

Probably. Did Dick Cheney’s rifle have a little “do not confuse elderly humans with quail” sticker on it? I bet it didn’t, and a fine pickle he’s in now.

February 20, 2006

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