Last week K bought a new, comfy upholstered chair. One afternoon I was sitting in my chair reading and out of the corner of my eye I saw one of those little white tags showing underneath her new ottoman. You know, the ones that certify that the stuffing in the chair meets all fire safety standards, etc, then goes on to say "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW".
Being just slightly OCD I couldn't read for looking at that damn label. It was just taunting me, I swear. I couldn't help my bad self....I flipped the ottoman over, whipped out my trusty pocket knife, and cut it off.
Within seconds there was a rather forceful knock at my door. I thought, "Holy crap! There really IS a Label Police!" Should I try and make a run for it? Plea bargain? Is it true I only get one phone call? So who should it be to? K? A lawyer? My 63 year clean record, pffffft...gone...over a label! DOH!
I had visions of being Bubba's girlfriend in The Big House.
Turns out it was just the UPS guy. *whew*
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True....ridiculous, but true: The European Union has a rule, EC2257/94, that regulates the allowable curvature of elongated produce such as bananas and cucumbers. It says that to be graded Class 1 it must be "practically straight and bent by no more than a gradient of 1/10."
So is there a Banana/Cucumber Police that goes from farmers market to farmers market looking for bent produce? Do they have Department of Bananas specialists and Department of Cucumbers specialists?
Do they have special identifying uniforms?
Is this all they have to do in Europe....put people on the government payroll to go around policing rules like EC2257/94?
Bureaucracy at its finest. I wonder if they got the idea from our Label Police or if we got ours from their Banana/Cucumber Police? Either way I can't believe such rules exist for me to write about in a blog post.
What a waste of time. I'm pretty sure consumers can figure out that a banana that's tied in a knot isn't something they want to buy for their families.
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Speaking of a waste of time: You've heard about the law passed by the Arizona Legislature that allows service to be denied to gays by those who are offended by homosexuality on religious grounds? Why are they even bothering with such a law?
If the Governor signs it someone will simply trot across the street to the Federal Courthouse where a Federal Judge will immediately issue a restraining order and shortly thereafter declare it unconstitutional. Duh! Talk about chasing a windmill.
Is this what happens when politicians stop taking their medicine?
S
Elected officials believe if they don't pass laws, what are they there for?
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm pretty sure once you buy the stuff, you can legally pull off the labels...just don't resell them with the labels missing, so relax, enjoy your book...getting scared by the UPS guy...priceless!
There are always those useless laws that exist on the books and no one bothers to enforce. I think in Oklahoma there was some statute about prohibiting whaling, which is good news for all the whales there.
ReplyDeleteI think the legislators in Arizona have been standing outside in the desert sun too long; they're having hallucinations that we're still in the 1950s. It'd be great though if gay shop owners then started refusing service to straights because of their "religious beliefs." Oh wait, but that would be discrimination!
Funny Post, enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI think there should be a team with one person from all walks of life, to review each law and toss out the useless and unwanted and get back to what we need to follow to be a nice society. It would be good for the police and all us tax payers.
ReplyDeleteFunny. I watched a german TV program the other day, where a couple of people were going around and weighing products and comparing them to what the weight was on the prodiuct label. Thid is what we get since the wall went down. Merkel, a product of the east, is trying to turn west Germany into a copy of the east. They should rebuild the wall in my opinion.
I've missed your posts while I was away. I'm more concerned that all the bananas we eat are sterile; they've had the seeds bred out of them and if you plant a banana in the ground it will no longer grow. I don't care if it's curved or not.
ReplyDeleteBananas and Arizona Legislature in the same post... Hmmmm... something in common there?
ReplyDeleteI love the Label Police story - that is so funny! I would have had a heart attack :)
ReplyDeleteYou know, for some reason, I prefer my bananas to have a nice curve - I tend to leave the straighter ones alone. Hey - maybe that means I'm more inclusive!
When I came to the U.S., so many things were new and strange to me. Those labels were amongst them. So I read them. It does say "This tag may not be removed under penalty of law..." followed by "...except by the consumer." So once you read it and figured out that you're not deathly allergic to anything they used to make the cushion, pillow, or mattress, your are free to remove it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure about European bananas and cucumber rules. They should be more worried about all that horse meat shit.
And I just read that Arizona law got vetoed by the Governor. Good. Otherwise, all those signs would have popped up in restaurants: "We reserve the right to refuse service to Arizona legislators."
As the Arizona representative here I can assure you that what the Republican-dominated legislature does in my state will have no connection to reality as the rest of know it. The Speaker of the House is from my district and a few years ago he was running around peddling birther nonsense about Obama. The Senator from my district, who changed his mind once he heard about all the protests, was the leader of the Senate for one term until even his own Party members voted him out. If it wasn't so tragic, it would be very, very funny.
ReplyDelete