Weird product warnings revisited! Add your gems to this treasure.

Weird product warnings revisited! Add your gems to this treasure.

The dishwasher manual warns against hydrogen gas dangers after a couple weeks of no use. To prevent an explosion in the dishwasher, you should run all hot water faucets in the house to clear hydrogen and don’t smoke while doing this. I cut down a warning made three times bigger to cover their liability.

You have to realize that strange as this warning is, somebody must have sued them to have it in the warning section of the manual. Do you have a strange product liability warning to add to this one?

I saw the following warning on one of those patio fire pits: “Watch children and pets while burning.”

What’s weird about that? If they get out of the pit and start running around, they’re gonna set everything else on fire, too.

Daniel
on the hellbound train

Not surprising, I suppose, but the jar of peanut butter I’m staring at has this information prominently displayed:

CONTAINS PEANUTS

I guess that’s reassuring. Or something.

Well, we really can’t forget the classic:

“Do not use in the shower” - On the instructions for a hair dryer

But my favourite new one was on the new “Superman Swingshot” action figure (which has a long cape so little boys can swing Superman around their heads rapidly and then throw him at things):

“Do not throw at people or animals.”

How sad that warning labels like this have to exist, rather than Mom and Dad using their common sense and TELLING Robert that he is not to ever throw Superman at the dog.

I’m not sure if it is actually genuine, or just an UL, but one of the classics in this category is the warning label appearing on the packaging of a Swedish chainsaw: “DO NOT ATTEMPT TO STOP CHAIN WITH YOUR HANDS OR GENITALS.”

I saw a hairdryer warning that said “Do Not Use While Sleeping.” So far I’ve been able to comply.

My Dremel instructions include the caution: Not to be used for home dental work. No joke.

My friend’s power washer said more than once, in a few permutations, that if you spray water up under your skin, to seek medical attention. Even if it seems OK, seek medical attention. Do not disregard, seek medical attention.

My all-time favorite was on a dishwasher purchased for use in an animal shelter.

“Do not allow children to play in dishwasher.”

I got weird looks from the plumber installing it when I said I was going to send it back because what did they think I bought the damn thing for?

I have a bottle of pet shampoo that proudly states that it was not tested on animals.

What, they want my dog to be a guinea pig?

That’s funny. I would have laughed at that point, had I been there.

Bruegger’s has a Thai peanut chicken sandwich that comes with a little container of peanut sauce that has a brightly colored label saying
CONTAINS PEANUTS

Um… no, I thought my peanut sauce was peanut-free. :smack:

My bottle of Head and Shoulders says that it’s “For External Use Only”. Well so much for curing my stomach dandruff.

It’s not on a product – it’s the weird disclaimers at the bottom of dramatized car ads, my current faorite being the one with the Loch Ness monster tossing the truck out of the Loch, and it drives away. Because, you know, if you try that yourself, having been tossed out of Lake Champlain by Champie, it just ain’t gonna work. And if you try to sue, they’ll just point to the disclaimer and say they told you so.

For years, every time I tell my kids to take a bath, I tell them to hop into the dishwasher.

Hey, that’s bathing, not playing, so we’re OK, right? RIGHT???

Actually, if the product hasn’t been tested, they don’t know what he’ll be turned into if exposed to the product :wink:

[hijack] So, I have to know–how on Earth does not using a dishwasher for a couple of weeks lead to a buildup of hydrogen gas in the pipes? [/hijack]

This brings up a fine legal and moral issue – can you ever use that shampoo to wash your guinea pigs?

I think you get a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, actually. Talk about explosive!

Daniel

When I was in AFJROTC, we recieved some training in first aid, wilderness survival, financial management, etc., and in the section of our textbooks about tourniquets was the following warning, in bold print, inside a bolded box in the middle of the page:

NEVER Apply Tourniquet to Neck.

We couldn’t decide what was more depressing: That they thought they needed to tell people this, or that they were probably right.

The easiest way to avoid it is to install a dihydrogen monoxide detector in your kitchen. It has been proven to save lives!