Burnt Offerings

I have gotten used to reading the warnings on the sides of drive-thru coffee cups about the liquid inside being hot or the laundry coming back from the dry cleaner in a thin, clear plastic bag telling me the covering “is not a toy.” My favorite remains the paint shelf on a six foot folding ladder with the red sticker screaming at me that “THIS IS NOT A STEP!”

It’s not that I’ve grown accustomed to the ways of the world here on The Planet of the Idiots, though I fear to a visitor from someplace else we must look a little doofy on some of this stuff. These are legal warnings, not placed on items for my good, but for the continued good (fiscally) of the person/company providing the good or service.

I’m still somewhat surprised (pointy) scissors do not have an advisory on them warning me “DO NOT RUN.” (Maybe they do and my vision has been impaired by all that paste I ate). I mention these seeming insults to common sense because of a headline and story I came across in USA Today, the national newspaper designed by people who hate writing for newspapers for people who hate reading newspapers.

Before you ask, I was seated with both feet on the floor, head approximately twenty-two inches from the screen, arms by my side wearing gloves, with safety goggles on over my glasses, with a bike helmet and a seat belt (I am allowed to skip the condom question in the privacy of my own home)). I could have used a chin strap to keep my jaw from dropping, but no harm was done to any animals in the writing of this paragraph. So far.

Elitist snob that I am, I can more easily understand praying over fajitas you'd purchase at Taco Bell, but I’m not sure I understand what Hiram thought the outcome should be or just how much farther his attorney should pursue this. 

I’m envisioning Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg squaring off in the equivalent of a judicial cage-match on this with salsa flecks all over their black robes. Can’t help but wonder who’ll be catering.

I think, given the chance, Hiram, you should take your next and every order to go since if you’re downwind when the fecal matter intersects with the ventilator some of those stains never come out.       

-bill kenny