Legal Schmegal

Dan and I have this funny fetish of reading legal paraphernalia on consumer products. Nearly every product will have a random "do not" in the legal mumbo jumbo. And this is what we find funny. As Dan notes, "The reason they have to put it on there is because some nuthead tried to do it."

Tonight, I read Orville Redenbacher's legal schmegal. Actually, it was classified "Helpful Hints" but we all know legal scoured it with a fine toothed comb. Anyway, under "Helpful Hints" for microwave popcorn it said, among other tips, "It is normal for some unpopped kernels to remain in a fully popped bag. Do not reheat unpopped kernels or reuse bag." Now this has Depression Era Aged people written all over it. Seriously, whose grandparents are not super cheap and find every possible way to reuse what others might consider un-reusable? (In high school Dan actually got a donation of USED UNDERWEAR from an older couple for his all-school yard sale.) But picture this... there's actually people out there who probably collect these orphan kernals and, once a fair amount are collected, pop them for an evening snack.

I'd be remiss if I didn't tell the orange story. My maternal grandparents live in Florida. When I was a teenager, I was visiting them with my family. My grandfather drove us kiddos to the park one afternoon. We were playing on the equipment when my grandpa ran over, "Quick, kids! A truck dropped oranges and we need to pick them up!" It occurred to me for a brief moment that maybe this effort was for humanitarian reasons (the truck driver was a migrant worker and his small truck dumped his produce). But, no. It was an 18-wheeler that dumped a significant amount of oranges on a local highway. Now I say local, but it still was a highway. Cars are dodging little round spheres of juicy fun. My grandfather is not a poor man; but he is frugal. If memory serves, we were loading the trunk of his new Lincoln Towncar. I was so embarrassed. Now, this being said, the man is probably a millionaire, like most of our penny-pinching grandparents. But I could have done without the citrus fun. Call me cold-hearted.

And so, Mr. Redenbacher's legal team, probably remembering their own "orange story", made sure that we knew to NOT reheat these kernals.

But then there's this other helpful hint on the popcorn: "Do not use popcorn button". Are you kidding me? The greatest invention ever- the microwave with a one-touch operation for popcorn... and we're encouraged to NOT use it? I use mine so regularly, it says " OPCORN". I'm picturing complaining coworkers in office buildings with billowing black smoke coming out of the break room because someone pushed the popcorn button on the microwave and they had one of those mini bags. Laughing... Mr. Redenbacher's legal team probably was still wafting the smoke out of the air of their own break room when they wrote this one. What a hoot.

Well, I recognize that this blog is becoming very Seinfeldian, but it's fun nonetheless. Please send me your funny legal schmegal lines. Meanwhile, do NOT use the popcorn button.