Do you remember Stella Liebeck? No? She was a seventy-nine year old woman who sued MacDonald's Restaurants for serving very hot coffee without warning.

Now, MacDonalds DID serve its coffee VERY hot... in fact, it was almost 200 degrees Fahrenheit... and it did cause a nasty burn...

...but...

The response was to place warnings on the cup... "CAUTION: CONTENTS HOT".

Now, when I order a hot drink, I assume it will be hot... and DOES have the potential to burn... but do I need to be warned of this?

...personally, I don't think so...

Sometimes, in this litigious world we live in, you really have to look at warnings on products and wonder WHO is this warning for? Was this a concern in the past? Did we miss ANOTHER silly lawsuit?

So, in the vein of being warned, as you are along some of Toronto's waterfront, "DO NOT SWIM IF WATER IS FROZEN", here is my THIRTEEN PRODUCT WARNINGS I'VE COME ACROSS AND HAD TO WONDER IF ANYONE REALLY NEEDED THIS WARNING...

Instructions for this Thursday Thirteen:

- Open browser
- Surf to post
- Read
- Giggle
- Rinse
- Repeat if necessary.

One Old Green Bus, it's owners, authors, and related employees do not accept any liability for damages sustained while reading this blog. After reading it, do not operate heavy machinery and remember, this blog is not a toy...

#13: Did you know, for example, Nytol sleeping pills "MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS".

Wouldn't it be counter-productive if they didn't?

#12: Having older girls means sometimes finding the latest and greatest "skin-care" products loitering in my bathroom... but one package of Stridex Foaming Face Wash warned me that, indeed, "MAY CONTAIN FOAM".

#11: "DO NOT THROW THIS ITEM AT ANY PERSONS"

What do you think this warning was on? Lawn dart? Shot-put? Baseball?

Nope...

It was a frozen roasting duck from a Quebec farm.

#10: Windex window/glass spray cleaner thoughtfully warns you "DO NOT SPRAY IN EYES".

...which immediately ruined my plans that day!

#9: You know those "fridge magnets" that look like slices of melon, pineapple, and whanot? Well, you'll be happy to hear that these tiny plastic/rubber magnets are "NOT REAL FOOD - DO NOT EAT".

I thought they were a bit chewy.

#8: "SOME SCENES MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN" - On a DVD box for Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses".

Okay honey! I've got Elmo, Barney, Dora, and House of 1000 Corpses for little Johnny!

From the reviews I saw of the film, it may also be said that some scenes are not suitable for anyone... period.

#7: Near an industrial building in Toronto's West End, there is a wall/fence that is about fourteen or fifteen feet high... it is solid concrete and realistically, is pretty much what you invision... a sheer well of concrete that's pretty darned tall.

The sign in the middle of it warns you, however... "DO NOT CLIMB".

Dammit! There goes my "spidey-plans" for this weekend!

#6: "DO NOT OPERATE NEAR OPEN FLAME" - Barbecue lighter.

Makes sense, but think about it...

#5: You hear it often, but it's true... pretty much all hair dryers and electronic "hair styling" equipment warns us "DO NOT USE WHILE SLEEPING" and "DO NOT USE IN THE SHOWER".

One has to assume that using these items while sleeping in the shower would be doubly catastrophic.

#4: In some of my routines, I have had need of earplugs... and one set came with the warning... "THESE EAR PLUGS ARE NON-TOXIC BUT MAY INTERFERE WITH BREATHING IF CAUGHT IN WINDPIPE"

Okay, first of all, "Ear Plugs" are not pills... or so we would hope that MOST people would understand this... I've got a rock concert to go to tonight... better swallow these two earplugs before I go!

One also has to read this one and wonder how many other products might interfere with breathing if caught in windpipe?

#3: As stated at the begining of this - because of a ridiculous lawsuit, "CAUTION: HOT" is on most coffee cups... but it does go both ways... "CAUTION: ITEM COLD" was on a frozen treat - ice cream in a sugar cone with nuts and caramel - I picked up the other day at a convenience store... from their freezer.

#2: I have to set this one up so as not to appear... um... well... Years ago, I worked for a company in Toronto that was a catalogue store named Consumers Distributing.

One of the items, that will NEVER leave my memory was "Catalog Entry KE 407-122" which was... well... it was entitled a "personal massager"... in layman's terms, it was a phallus-shaped sex toy.

Oddly enough, it was the only "such" item in the catalogue... and even funnier is, in the two years I worked for this company, the only people we ever sold KE 407-122s to were men... and always with the same lines... It's for a joke... a gag... it's not for me...

It probably was meant for a joke, but there was a certain amount of glee we took in making these guys kinda feel odd...

Anyway, the ONLY warning on the boxes this six-inch, vibrating, plastic "massager" had was... "DO NOT USE ON UNEXPLAINED CALF PAINS".

In all the staff's opinion at Consumer's Distributing, if you were using it on your legs, you already had a problem.

#1: I bought a bag of candied "maple peanuts" (beer nuts with a maple flavour)... the bag contained the warning "MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF NUTS".

All I could think when reading this was, I bloody well hope so! I'd be far more disturbed if this didn't have ANY traces of nuts in it...

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Please, if you have a few minutes, take some time to find out more about this bus and the kooky dream by clicking here.

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