New Safety Regs Coming Soon
Words and photos by Cliff Gromer
7/7/06
emember when you were a kid and your mother used to tell you stuff like, “Don’t go out without your hat.” Or, “It’s raining--put on your galoshes.” Or, “Eat your vegetables” (they didn’t call them “veggies” back in the old days).
Well, the government is sort of like your mom—always looking out for your best interest because they don’t think you’re smart enough to look out for yourselves. “Wear a seatbelt when you get into a car.” Or, “Wear a helmet when you get on a bike.” Or a hundred thousand other do’s and don’ts. Let’s face it; we’d all be dead hundreds of times over if it weren’t for our government looking out for us. There isn’t any aspect of our daily life that the government hasn’t tried to make safer for us—except one. Reading your favorite car magazine. More specifically reading your favorite car magazine in the john, more commonly referred to as “bowl reading.”
 This is what you’ll soon be required to use in order to read your favorite car magazine on the bowl without getting fined or thrown in jail. |
Now I know this isn’t a subject readily discussed in polite society, but it’s an area that’s ripe for governmental intervention, what with all the hidden hazards involved in this activity. We recently got a behind the scenes look at some of the government regulations now on the drawing board concerning bowl reading safety, and it takes an organization with the intestinal fortitude (no pun intended) of DRO to leak this confidential information to the public ahead of time (there’s going to be some red faces in Washington, to be sure.)
The government think tank folks really had to stick their heads up their respective you-know-what's to come up with ideas to deal with the critical dangers of bowl reading, and then figure out all the precautions that are necessary to preserve life and limb.
The biggest danger, of course, is human intestinal gas, more commonly known as (we’re not allowed to use the F-word—this being a family website and all). The primary ingredient of the gas is methane—that’s right, the same highly explosive and deadly gas that's found in coal mines (which bears out our contention that humans evolved from coal). 'Course you know how many thousands of coal miners have been lost due to methane gas explosions in the mines. Now think about how you would feel being blown out of the bathroom through the side of your house because of a methane explosion. To deal with this issue, the government has come up with a list of approved safety equipment that will be mandated to make bowl reading less dangerous.
First on the list is a fire extinguisher that must be within handy reach. Methane is highly flammable, and should you survive an explosion, you may have to deal with a resulting fire which could destroy you and your home, and injure your loved ones (we’re sure the insurance companies had their 2-cents in this one).
Number two is a gas mask. Never set yourself on the bowl without an approved gas mask. Not only is methane gas flammable, it’s also lethal. So, if it doesn't blow you up, it will poison you. Coal miners used to carry a caged canary in the mines. The canary would croak from the methane before the miners, so when the bird went feet-up, the miners would beat it to the nearest exit. By the way, other family members may appreciate receiving their own gas masks when you're on the bowl.
There also have been some reports of readers passing out while reading some of the articles in car magazines such as Mopar Action. This can be a problem on the bowl as you can pitch forward and crack open your head on the hard tiled floor. The government has taken note of this and has included a safety belt and crash helmet (Snell approved, of course), as additional mandatory equipment.
If you think that’s the end of the bowl reading dangers, think again. Who knows what toxic compounds are used in the manufacture of printing inks, and finger punctures from those sharp staples in the centerfold of the magazine can cause nasty infections that can fester for weeks. And, need we mention the ever present danger of paper cut infections? The government has researched all of this and will legislate the mandatory wearing of heavy gloves, available from any logging supply outlet, to protect yourself.
We have to emphasize that the government has found that the safety equipment mentioned here to be just the bare minimum for safe bowl reading. They are looking into additional protective measures, such as the wearing of Sure-Grip shoe soles and the use of non-flammable toilet paper. The government will figure it all out, and when they do, we’ll all enjoy longer, safer and more productive lives. In the meantime, happy bowl reading--before it’s outlawed entirely. 
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