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It Can't All Be a Doctor Bronner's Bottle
mirabela
Posts: 4,971 ✭✭✭✭✭
Not everything comes with ancillary print. Mostly, it appears where it is least needed, as on toaster pastries: Heat this up. Caution -- when you have done so, it will be hot. Or on the kosher salt: to make bland food taste less so, sprinkle. Adjust to taste, nevermind just how you are meant to do that when you’ve erred on the side of excess. Other suggested uses fill out the packaging – for old-fashioned pickles; to dispel bad luck; to kill slug.
Other print, equally obvious, is more chilling; the insult shrinks as the stakes increase. Do not leave child unattended. Harmful or fatal if swallowed. This bag, by now we all know, is not a toy.
Here and there, one sneaks up on you: May cause rectal leakage, reads the potato chip canister, on account of the synthetic fat. Sometimes the news is counterintuitive: use of this antidepressant, the pamphlet reveals, is associated with drowsiness and impotence.
It all has its reasons for being there. Behind each message, one supposes, is the tale of someone who had to figure it out the hard way: somebody’s burnt tongue, a bed of ruined tomatoes, the preschooler who swallowed lye. Consider this: the men’s room in every McDonalds has a changing table in it, with instructions in Braille.
But I was saying, not everything comes so explained. Attention, why doesn’t it say, don’t throw this can or bag or bottle out your stupid truck window!
Having put together this desk, without the directions naturally, how do I organize it?
Is there a way to get my car stereo back?
What do I say to my friend over the lunch he can’t eat when we both know he won’t see next week?
Injustices enshrined as laws ruin lives on every side; how many steps to a quick rebellion so moist and rich it tastes like it’s from scratch? And will there be any side effects?
So far my family has survived human history; how might we thus continue?
How do you keep the fire (pick a fire, any fire) from going out?
I stand midway between the sad story and the ancillary print, saying I would like some directions, please.
Other print, equally obvious, is more chilling; the insult shrinks as the stakes increase. Do not leave child unattended. Harmful or fatal if swallowed. This bag, by now we all know, is not a toy.
Here and there, one sneaks up on you: May cause rectal leakage, reads the potato chip canister, on account of the synthetic fat. Sometimes the news is counterintuitive: use of this antidepressant, the pamphlet reveals, is associated with drowsiness and impotence.
It all has its reasons for being there. Behind each message, one supposes, is the tale of someone who had to figure it out the hard way: somebody’s burnt tongue, a bed of ruined tomatoes, the preschooler who swallowed lye. Consider this: the men’s room in every McDonalds has a changing table in it, with instructions in Braille.
But I was saying, not everything comes so explained. Attention, why doesn’t it say, don’t throw this can or bag or bottle out your stupid truck window!
Having put together this desk, without the directions naturally, how do I organize it?
Is there a way to get my car stereo back?
What do I say to my friend over the lunch he can’t eat when we both know he won’t see next week?
Injustices enshrined as laws ruin lives on every side; how many steps to a quick rebellion so moist and rich it tastes like it’s from scratch? And will there be any side effects?
So far my family has survived human history; how might we thus continue?
How do you keep the fire (pick a fire, any fire) from going out?
I stand midway between the sad story and the ancillary print, saying I would like some directions, please.
mirabela
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