our opinions: CURMUDGEON MUSINGS
The Last
BY MARK BROWN
Word
Hazard: Watch For Overly-Safe Contraptions
I
had an experience a few weeks ago I want to relate to
everyone, one that in my humble opinion, illustrates
how pathetic our society has become, in relation to
“everything’s just too difficult,” because of a hyper atmo-
sphere, and the philosophy of, “let’s protect everybody
from everything.”
My story begins when a good friend of mine ran out of
gas one weeknight at about 7:30.
It wasn’t a problem, I’m happy to help. I’ve had the
same thing happen to me, and people have always been
happy to assist.
Since I didn’t have a gas can at my house, I thought I’d
run down to the local hardware store that has everything,
I always enjoy going there anyway, pick up a can quickly,
run by a gas station and get a couple of gallons of fuel and
be on my way. No problem right? Wrong.
I got to the store and asked where gas cans are as I go
by the front registers, and they promptly direct me to the
area in the rear of the store. So far so good, until I get to
the cans.
There is a large selection, from about $20 to $90
dollars. I start looking at the selection, now here is where
the problem comes in. And, before I describe this, I readi-
ly admit to being the least mechanical person on the plan-
et, hands down, I’m the worst. But always in the past I’ve
been able to manage to use a gas can. Not this time! In
the past, the procedure was unscrew the gas can lid, put
in the required amount of gas, put the lid back on tightly,
when you get to the empty vehicle, unscrew the lid again,
put in the little spout that conveniently comes with it and
pour in the gas.
But noooooo. These new gas cans are an overly-
complicated mess. They have all kinds of so-called safety
features, a series of buttons or little switches you have
to simultaneously click on and off, even the lid doesn’t
just screw off, there is a mechanism to make it work. It’s
insane. I’ll admit I couldn’t make it work. First, I was in a
hurry, I didn’t want to leave my friend on the side of the
road in the dark for long. I’m getting frustrated, I finally get
a store clerk over and ask him to show me how to use it.
Guess what? He couldn’t do it either. He does find a small
book on the bottom of the can. Then, it took him a while
112
to even get the book open, and that didn’t help. So, he
calls his manager over. The manager didn’t know, but he
did manage to figure it out.
At this point I’m really standing beside myself, with all
of the complications, when really all I’m trying to do is
buy a DAD-GUM gas can.
Should anything be that complicated?
So I bought the $20 gas can and also buy a funnel on
the way out just-in-case. I eventually got to my friend, on
the side of the road, in the dark, with cars whizzing by.
I pulled out my handy Star Fleet Commander Super
NASA approved incredibly-safe gas can. I do exactly what
the store manager told me to do, I inserted the spout at a
certain angle that was supposed to click all the cool safety
stuff and, then. In theory, in goes the gas. Right? Wrong. I
should be so lucky. It didn’t work. So I’m here in the dark,
cars whizzing by, I’m hungry and I’m mad.
So, I whip out my hand funnel, take the cap off the gas
can, and start pouring, success right? Nope, turns out the
angle was wrong and I got more gas on me than in the
car. Finally, though, I got my friend on his way.
I told this story, because it’s the perfect example of
everything in this world has become way too complicated.
I’m convinced that somehow a notion that everything has
to be perfect and utterly risk-free has enveloped the world,
and I think that a risk-free world is impossible to achieve.
Someday people are going to have to take some respon-
sibility for their own stupidity. Folks, if you put your foot
under a running lawnmower deck, there is gonna be a bad
outcome. But, guess what? There is a major warning on
mowers to keep your feet out of there.
So we have come to a point that we are building gas
cans so safety-proof that they are horrible to use. I don’t
want one. In fact, I threw the one I bought away. I’ll go
find an old regular unsafe one at First Monday. And I bet,
I don’t blow myself up. What probably happened was,
some mullet head hurt himself with a gas can somewhere,
then, a special interest group, some Ralph Nader type,
sued everyone and got a crazy politician to pass a bill,
and made a ton of money off of these unusable gas cans.
So, that’s my rant for the month. I’m sorry if I offended
any gas can lobbyists.