I'm sure you've seen it, especially after buying something from a toy store: "this bag is not a toy." Well, no-fricking-duh. Unfortunately, we live in a world where failure to print these warnings on packaging will result in some parent thinking that the bag is a toy and allowing eir child to play with this plastic bag instead of the actual toy that came in the bag. Then the child will suffocate. But who's to blame for this idiocy? That's right: the manafacturer, for not explicitly stating that the bag is not a toy.

Case in point: take Sailor Moon. She's not the brightest crayon the box or the sharpest knife in the drawer. When Ramune first came out, she spent several hours trying to pull the marble out. I can cite more than one occasion on which she has put a random plastic bag over her head just to "look like a freaking ghost!" She accidentally got part of it stuck in her mouth when she breathed in too quickly. We pulled the bag off of her head and she was fine. However, the next week, after purchasing several packages of candy from a nearby grocery store, she put the standard "Thank You!" bag on her head again. People like Usagi do not learn their lessons.

Now for the horrible irony: almost every bag that she has put on her head has had "This is not a toy" printed on it. The idiots out there will continue to physically endanger themselves regardless of any legal precaution the manafacturers out there take. The main difference is that now the idiots have no legal leg to stand on and sue the companies for producing such a "dangerous toy."

My next complaint irritated me once I thought about it, although I found it funny at first. Many buckets these days, especially at restaurants, have a printed warning on the side that children can drown if they are places head-first into a bucket full of a liquid. Again: that's pretty darn obvious. However, whenever I see this warning, I burst out laughing because, unlike the plastic bag disclaimer, the bucket warning is accompanied by an illustration of an upside-down child in the bucket with its arms and legs flailing. Usagi-chan will probably mistake it for instructions and attempt to enter the bucket in the illustrated fashion. But, again, the bucket manafacturer is safe from being sued: they've warned (in several languages!) that the bucket is not a toy and that children can drown in it.

In any case, I still find it amusing that companies are developing downright child-traps--no, scratch that--idiot-traps. Maybe I'm being too harsh. These manafacturers have developed an ingenious way to weed out the population without being held legally responsible. I can't believe it has just now dawned on me! I retract this entire rant! Thanks, big corporate manafacturers! We love you!