We’ve all seen silly warnings and inane instructions on things, and we all know it’s those nefarious, overpaid company legal departments who’re behind them. But as an intrepid reporter, I wanted to delve deeper. I mean yeah, the legal eagles may have vetted all those warnings, but who really came up with them in the first place? It may have been like having a desire for a root canal without anesthesia, but I simply had to know who these people were.
I located a top-secret facility called the Lowest Common Denominator Focus Group Institute and Hog Farm. I called them, and learned I had to answer a battery of application questions first: (“Where is the Pacific Ocean?” -Iowa. “Do you think the world is round?” -Undecided. “How much is 2 x 5?” – No answer – that’s a trick question. “Do you believe politicians have your best interests at heart?” – Yes.) Having answered all of them correctly, I convinced them I had the IQ of a turnip. I was invited to join them, and I went in undercover so I could report back on exactly what goes on at a warning-label focus group.
“Good morning everyone,” said the focus group leader, “and welcome to Lowest Common Denominator. We’re here today because the Acme Power Tool Company is developing a new drill and they need our help coming up with warning labels to make it as safe as possible. Any questions before we start? Yes Buford?”
“Will there be doughnuts?”
“Yes Buford, there’ll be doughnuts. That’s what’s there on that big platter right next to you.”
“Good, because I like doughnuts. Although they can be dangerous too. I got my foot caught in one last time, remember? You know, we should consider warning labels on doughnuts about how easy it is to get your foot caught in that little hole in the middle if you step just right and your shoes aren’t tied and-“
“Yes Buford, good point. I’ll mention that to the doughnut people. In the meantime, all of you please be very careful when walking anywhere around the doughnuts.”
At this, everyone in the room nodded with very serious expressions. A few cast wary glances at the platter of doughnuts lurking on the table, now newly enlightened as to the potentially catastrophic tripping hazards they posed.
“Moving on, let me refresh your memories with some of the actual tool warning labels you’ve helped us develop in the past. I’m sure you all remember the classic rotary tool warning: ‘This product not intended for use as a dental drill.’ And we were especially proud to contribute to the international market when a Swedish chainsaw manufacturer used this warning we wrote in one of their manuals: ‘Do not attempt to stop the blade with your hand.’ We need more beauties like that one!
“Anyway, here’s Acme’s new electric drill. They already have 17 pages of warnings, so their legal department really wants us to work hard to come up with some new stuff. Put your thinking caps on – we need to protect the public here! Anyone? Yes Abner?”
“Well, we want to be sure people don’t put gasoline in it. They could get themselves blowed up.”
“Uh, yes, but it’s an electric drill.”
“Well duh, that’s what I’m saying. Gas and e-lec-tricity don’t mix. We need to warn ‘em about that.”
“Perfect. Good job. Anyone else? Cindy Mae?”
“It’s got kind of a nice round shape, and I can see how I could sure use it for rollin’ out dough for a pie crust. But I think I’d wanna warn people to unplug it first. That cord could get drug through the pie fillin’ otherwise.”
“Well that’s just silly,” threw in Buford. “Just keep it simple and tell folks not to use it for rolling dough. The dough’s gonna gum up the motor, plugged in or not.”
“Yeah, but I hate to tell ‘em they can’t use it for dough-rolling at all. It’s got a great shape for that, and in an emergency, like if they’ve used their rolling pin for an axle on the kid’s wagon and they don’t have anything else available except their electric drill, we’ve kind of deprived ‘em of that, and that doesn’t seem fair.”
“Uh, I think Buford has a point. We’ll say ‘no dough rolling’ and leave it at that, okay.”
“Still don’t seem fair,” Cindy Mae mumbled, then she brightened. “I’ve got another one, and this is really important. We need to warn people about what happens if you use it as a boat motor!”
“Ohhhh!” came a collective gasp of admiration from the entire group.
“Excellent Cindy Mae,” exclaimed our group leader, “just excellent! That’s the exact type of out-of-the-box thinking we need. Tell me more!”
“Well, one time I was going out catfishing with a bunch of the cousins, and Ned’s trolling motor broke. He didn’t have another one, so he went around to all of the neighbors and borrowed all of the electric drills he could get his hands on. He stuck a sawed-off egg beater in the chuck of each one, then he duck-taped ‘em all together. He wired ‘em all up to a huge extension cord on a spool on the dock.”
“So you want people to know of the dangers of using electricity around water, right?”
“Huh? That’s dangerous? Didn’t know about that one. No, I want folks to know that if you go out too far, the cord gets itself unplugged, and then you have to row back to shore. I really think they should be warned that they need to calculate the length of the extension cord based on where the fish are biting.”
“Yeah,” Buford added, not to be outdone, “and they need to be warned that all the drills need to be set to ‘reverse’ if they want to get back to shore!”
I desperately wanted to know more, but then suddenly, there was an uproar when someone noticed my notepad.
“Look – he can make letters,” they shouted in unison.
Sadly, shortly afterward I was thrown out of the group for being overqualified.
Paul can be reached at paul2887@ykwc.net.