and then kate

Media outlets reported this week that the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that the hot dog be redesigned. Apparently, 17 percent of children 10 and under who die of choking do so while eating a hot dog. According to one doctor, a hot dog is pretty much the “perfect plug for a child’s airway.” 

(Great. Freakin’ fantastic. Now I used the word plug in a post. As if using jailbait and mom porn wasn’t bad enough. With plug, it shall be like the Trifecta of Filthy Search Terms. Oh, THE LENGTHS I GO TO FOR THIS BLOG.)

Now I just don’t know. Without diminishing in any way the tragedy of families who have lost a child to a choking accident, I’m not convinced that a redesign is really necessary here. Some chopping into bite-size pieces? Sure. Some careful observation of your child when eating? Of course. But a redesign? Maybe for Toyota accelerators, yes, but not the hot dog.

I’m not sure if today’s parents have actually lost their common sense or if manufacturers, government officials, and the medical community just think we have. For instance, this is Aura’s current favorite toy.

Yep, it’s slime. Yep, it’s gross. And yep, it makes the most terrifically awesome disgusting sound when you slap it. But despite what you probably might not think, you are NOT supposed to eat it. See? The bottle says so.

Perhaps some warnings are a little too much, even possibly weakening the value of warnings that are really needed. Also, where are those other labels, the ones parents themselves would write? Where, I ask you, is the BEWARE! DANGER! sticker on parking lots, where Aura has now fallen once for every month of her life with forehead gravel-imprint marks to prove it? Door hinges, tile floors, wheels on shopping carts, the occasionally sharp-edged, lawsuit-worthy Lego block…hell. I’m going out tonight and getting me a label maker.

And if anything needs a stern cautionary sentence or two, it’s these kids themselves. Something like “CAUTION. THIS SMALL PERSON HAS COME IN CONTACT WITH APPROXIMATELY ONE MILLION BILLION OTHER SMALL PEOPLE. IT IS GUARANTEED HE OR SHE WILL GET SICK, GET YOU SICK, AND GENERALLY SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE OF WALKING PLAGUE.”  That would work nicely, I think.

In the meantime, I’m so capitalizing on the hot-dog fear. I hear that the first person to come up with a plausible redesign wins a lifetime supply of foam wall coverings. You know, because walls hurt you if you run into them.