Everyday Stupidities

I stopped in at the local Big Red Bullseye See Spot Save store a few days ago, and to my surprise they were still offering Magnetix toys. The only change was that there's a sign on the front of the display from some consumer protection group -- not the CPSC, some other one -- warning of the swallowing and aspiration hazards pre-suggested age range kids and stupid bigger kids have encountered, with Rose Arts' phone number for returns. I imagine this sign is for people who have already bought the toy in the last year, but can see people buying one right then and returning it to Rose Arts instead of not buying one at all. {shrug}

Speaking of dizzy signs, someone posted one to a "that's bizarre" group on Flikr the other day from a bank in England that says something like "you must be inside the bank to park here." This is just poorly phrased because it defies some laws of physics, or maybe it's for the driver to sit and wait while the passenger goes into the bank... but what if you came alone? I did not however have my camera onhand to contribute what I saw in person the same day: at a local hardware store's entrance area there is a display of patio furniture, and some wise employee has put a sign up saying "please do not eat or sit on the furniture." I'd imagine people eating the wicker and redwood furniture might cut into the store's profits, unless they adopted a firm "You bite it, You buy it!" policy. At right we have a couple bits of text obtained from ancient sources to amuse you. This is filler because I can't publish the four pictures I took the other day of a nearby house's icicle liiiights (covering the front, back, sides, and fence... in mid-April!) until next month. It'll be worth the wait. ps - hippos are carnivores, and rather dangerous ones at that.

A few years ago I was working through a day-labor place, which placed me with a caterer that was serving three meals a day at a pulp mill during their biannual equipment cleanup, which would take up to 14 days to complete. The two women who owned the place (and lived together, so there was no escape from one another!) cut corners as best as they could, and during the entire time I was there I was eating the same batch of mushroom gravy and tri-tips in one form or another. On day 10 of the epic, I was instructed to prepare some chocolate chip cookies:
+ All I had to do was put globs of frozen dough onto parchments on cookie sheets in the warmer.
- We did not have any fresh parchments... and they knew this.
+ The sheets already had parchments on them, so why not recycle? They have two sides.
- The item prepared on those parchments was garlic breadsticks.
The next morning I get a call from the rent-a-wretch place, saying my duties were complete. I'm fairly certain they used the garlic cookies as an excuse not to have me back (they'd already balked at paying me for working more than 40 hours in a week, after scheduling me for 56), since they didn't specifically tell me to use those sheets but didn't offer any alternatives (knowing there were none, and not making cookies wasn't an option in their eyes), and I'm dead-positive they served the cookies without flinching.