Warning: Lack of good sense can be harmful

I bought myself a heated hair brush thingy the other day. A little like a curling iron – which if you’ll remember from past columns, I managed to burn my forehead with – but with a brush thingy instead of a tong thingy at the end. 

This I was hoping would be the thingy that also actually blew heat through its apparatus, just as a dear friend’s curly brushy thingy does, but lackaday, it wasn’t to be, so I have accepted the fact that I am now the proud owner of a non-tonged, non-blowy, brushy curly thingy which I know in my heart I will wrestle with approximately 2.87 times, with a degree of difficulty of 48 million, and it will end up lying forgotten in the bottom of a cupboard in perpetuity in about eight and a half minutes.

I am the ultimate impulse shopper.  I go in like a bull in a china shop, as my dear departed mother would say, and then sit back and rue the day, as my fourth grade teacher, Miss Teasel of the large bosom and vitamin burp breath would say.

There was a small – a very small – reason to rejoice however. It came with a warning tag. Not only a warning tag, but a double sided warning tag:

“Warning”, it shrieked, “burn hazard”, it yelled.  “Keep away from children,” it screamed.

Well, yes, I agree. But the other side caught my attention:

“Caution – this product can burn eyes”.

Well, shiver me timbers. Why one would confuse a foot long heated hairbrush for an eyelash curler is rather beyond my comprehension. I suppose in the bleary daze of face planting in the makeup bag at 6:30 a.m. might cause you to confuse your blusher with your face powder, or your blue eye color with your brown. But not a third of a yard of a hot appliance with something which you might confuse with the kitchen tongs if you were blotto enough at the time.

But I suppose if you’ve been blessed with illegal eyelashes – those usually relegated to small boys – you might be tempted to have a bit of a whirl with a heated curling device.  Maybe. If you were very stupid.

Or, I don’t know, maybe someone woke up one morning and decided that their left eyeball was particularly cold and decided to plunge a red hot poker with bristles into it to thaw it out.

I guess it all gets lumped into the category of the blisteringly bewildered category of the “doh” warning labels. Like the ones attached to hair dryers which warn you not to use them while in the shower. Or the cup of nuclear hot coffee in case you’re tempted to clamp it between your thighs.

Which reminds me of the lovely line I heard from the dead-pan comic Steven Wright the other day. He said he was going to go to Mackers and ask for ice water then sue them for hypothermia.

But I digress.

I’ve decided I indeed do need warning labels.  But ones aimed at me.

Believe me, I am not about to go half-nelsoning a cup of coffee, nor be in such a hurry I need to dry my hair before I’ve finished rinsing, but I will confess I am in need of help.

I will not, I can give you my warm personal assurance, stand on the top rung of any ladder, no matter how short it is.  Afraid of heights, I will not let both feet leave the ground together at any point.

I will not rub Bengay into my eyes, I will not forget that knives can cut me, and I will be ever mindful of the fact that chicken left out overnight on the chopping board is likely to make me throw up in a rather cinematic Technicolor way.

I needed a warning label on my hot brushy thingy. “Annie,” it would say, “do you realize this doesn’t in fact blow hot air like Kat’s does, and do you realize you won’t fool with it more than thrice?”

I need a warning label on my three new pairs of trousers. Very flash they are, in a size smaller than I’ve worn since in school (yes, Veronica, the diet is working). One in white, one in brown and one in olive green. And all in linen.

Yes, I needed a warning label: “Annie,” it would come down in dire tones, “you do realize that linen requires ironing, don’t you?”

I would have a warning label on every single solitary tube of lipstick on the planet:  “Warning, Annie,” it would tut-tut at me, “this will come off your lips before you even get to the office, but it will remain forever etched in every cup or glass with which it comes in contact.”

This would neatly fit in with every dishwashing powder or liquid ever made.  “Warning. This will remove baked in grease, left over cat food, old bits of pot roast, but it will never remove lipstick.” And, I might add, neither will it remove the sticky price tags used to label glassware, china or tomatoes or apples.

I think in this era of the nearing Orwellian Government-like control, I am not overstepping the bounds of reality in trying to help those who so desperately need it, am I?

Yes, the impulse shopper must be saved from herself.

Emily Pankhurst-like, Carrie Nation in stature, I will lead the charge.

I’m sure I can get Hallmark interested.

But excuse me, I must take my leave. I have .87 left to go contend with the eyeball burning hot brushy thingy.