Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Can you be excommunicated for excessive eye-rolling?

Seriously.

Every month I look forward to the Relief Society newsletter, because not only does it provide a handy guide to upcoming birthdays and nice little blurbs on new women in the ward, it can be counted on to provide at least one bit that induces in me a reaction ranging from uncontrollable eye-rolling to barely suppressed howls of laughter. Last month's contained earnest warnings about the dangers of eating out of PVC (who would do this?), and of licking sanitizing gel off your hands. The girl in the latter item was reportedly tested at the ER and found to have a blood alcohol level of 85%! Someone read it on the internet, so it must be true, right?*

This month's gem was a strong reminder that we should not drink water from plastic water bottles left in our cars, because the heat causes toxins to leach out of the plastic that can cause breast cancer. In FACT, Sheryl Crow's doctor concluded that this practice had directly led to her breast cancer!

I'm trying to figure out a nice way to encourage our newsletter editor to do a little fact-checking before publishing.

*You can get alcohol poisoning from hand sanitizer, but you'd have to eat quite a bit of it (and the BA level resulting would be a few decimal places different than the one cited by the item referenced above). Hand sanitizer is a good thing, but kids should be supervised a little in its use--a small squirt, not a large one, and keep rubbing it around until it evaporates.

6 comments:

Sara said...

If you can, I clearly will be put on the same bus out!

MWR said...

Hmm, so much for SD-40 alcohol, "specially denatured" with denatonium benzoate, the most bitter substance known. Those kids are hard core.

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't it say on the ingredient list if it had SD-40? Or wouldn't denatonium benzoate be listed as an ingredient? Because Purell just says it has 62% ethyl alcohol.

I can't speak to other hand sanitizers.

MWR said...

Hmm, I thought my Google search suggested it was SD-40, but maybe that was the moist wipes. Seems most odd that they would make a product like that with so much potable ethanol. I'd be worried about teenagers.

Unknown said...

Bad enough to endure lame, hoaxy email forwards, but plastic bottle cancers and don't-drink-the-hand -sanitizer warnings in a church newsletter? Ye gods.

If they're going to worry, why not do it about something real? Like teenagers raiding the household medicine cabinet looking for painkillers to resell at school? Seriously.

Janet Kincaid said...

What?!? Everything that's on the internet isn't true?!? Damn. Now where am I suppose to find the truth?

Seriously, though, I don't know how you do it, JA. I'm afraid if I received a R.S. newsletter every month, I wouldn't be as kind.

As for eyerolling, I think that's why I finally left. My eyes got stuck and I figured it was time to find a new hobby.