Warning: this post may cause annoyance...

So I bought a product yesterday and when opening it, noticed there was a warning on it informing me that it was a choking hazard and that I need to take certain steps if the product is to be used by young children. Which isn't unusual these days, except the product was a pack of Hebrew National 97% fat free hot dogs (which, I must say, are possibly the best hot dogs I've ever had - the Jews sure know how to make a wiener.) The package informed me that the hot dogs cause choking in children and should be cut lengthwise and into small pieces and that children need to be observed carefully.

Every time I think that I've seen it all when it comes to warnings, there is another one that goes beyond what I thought could ever be necessary to guard companies against lawsuits. Society has been making and eating sausage for hundreds of years, but only now do we find the need to warn people that there kids shouldn't shove an entire sausage down their gullet at one time.

The other warning that always strikes me as odd is the ones on the exersize equiptment at the gym I go to that says to discontiue using the equiptment if you become tired, dizzy or have trouble breathing. Which is odd, because I thought being tired and out of breath were pretty much standard parts of working out. If I had heeded the warning, I probably would have had to get off the treadmill the first time I stepped on it - and I'd be 75 pounds or so heavier and 6 inches wider. It's hard for me to think I would have been better off following the warning.

I'm not going to go on and talk about how we have too many lawsuits and that's why we have all these silly warning labels - I think everyone has figured that out. But I do long for the day I can buy a package of hot dogs and not have to read a warning label.