Safety First!


The best part about buying some cool new product, besides the inflated sense of self-worth, is reading all the warnings that come with it. These strange and unusual warnings give you a small glimpse into a horrible, terrifying world. A world where people use nails as Q-tips.

A great example of this was recently brought to my attention. It was a found inside the box of a new curling iron.

Clearly, some inventive soul attempted a sort of do-it-yourself Lasik procedure, and the result is this excellent graphic of a steaming hot curling iron gradually descending on some unsuspecting eyeball. Aside from the wonderful picture is the informative message "THIS PRODUCT CAN BURN EYES," the all-caps showing how serious they are about this. A recent poll I conducted shows that almost 86% of American adults are not aware that hot items can burn their eyeballs.




On the other side of the above warning is another, seemingly contradicting warning. This one tells us that, apparently, only children are in danger of being burned by this product. I'm somewhat confused by this. Should I still be worried about burning my eyes, or should I be worried about burning my children's eyes?


I also noticed that if you remove the text from this graphic and leave only the picture, you get an entirely different warning message.

For Example:

This one now means "DON'T LET RECENTLY ESCAPED CONVICT CHILDREN STEAL YOUR STEAMING HOT CURLING IRON."

That look of bitterness on his face could only come from years of serving hard time. I also didn't know they made kids wear those cartoony striped prison clothes.




I found another interesting warning in the owners manual of my car. The very frightening thing about this warning is that, for the life of me, I can't figure out what in the world this guy is doing wrong. He's just sitting there! What is this picture trying to tell me? Don't sit? Don't wear my seatbelt? Don't shave my face off and paint my entire body gray?

I was very happy with my car, but now I'm a bit worried seeing as how I do some mysterious forbidden thing every time I drive.

There was another interesting warning in the owners manual, but this one made a bit more sense to me. It tells you not to attach one of those cup holders to your door. The text goes on to explain the reason is because those cup holders are extremely dorky and haven't been seen inside the car of anyone even remotely cool for decades.

It further goes on to state that such cup holders can only be installed in a 1974 Mercury station wagon, pictured below.