WCW: Reading the Fine Print of Life, May 27, 2015 Gratiana Lovelace (Post #754)

I’m a dry girl–and I don’t just mean no alcohol. Ha! It’s the Sjogren’s thingy. So I’m constantly lubricating something. Now now. Apart from my eyes, my throat is where I’m trying to stay moist the most. Sucking on lozenges to promote saliva production, or just plain ingesting a dollop of clear gel Oral Balance that has a very faint minty taste from the folks at Biotene works. This is not a commercial for it. But it really is soothing stuff.

 

However, as with anything we ingest, buy, participate in, attend, marry, etc., it’s a good idea to check out the details or the fine print before hand:

1) Ingesting something is where we really need to pay attention. The sugar free hard candies I like for moistening my mouth and throat are only 15 g of carbs for 5 candies. Yay! And they really soothe my throat with their fruity goodness–however temporarily that might be. But concurrent with my intake of said soothing hard candies, I had a few dash to the bathroom I was quizzical. Then I read the fine print on the candy bag label, bolded no less: Excess consumption may have a laxative effect. How did I miss that? Usually, I’m so careful with food labels. Oops! So, my throat will be soothed and moist, but its benefit is mitigated by the quite deleterious side effect. I haven’t yet determined the precise excess consumption level for my BMI–since I immediately adjusted my intake–but 5 candies seems to be a safe bet.

2) The products we buy also have their fine print moments. Warning labels such as for external use only, wash before using [Richard Armitage as John Porter in Strikeback, right, by Nathalie], content may not be suitable for all audiences, or if solution changes color or becomes cloudy do not use seem practical, I grant you. But if I want to remove the warning tags from my bed pillow I will–I don’t need to remember what patent number they are. And the completely unrealistic (read, ignored) warning tag on my Christmas lights string of “handling this coated wire exposes you to lead” reminds me of the time that our science department received a space shuttle tile on loan for display (cool!).   Then three days later the hazmat safety warnings came in the mail with the admonition not to handle the space shuttle tile ungloved because the fine silicate nature of it could cause glassified dust particles to get onto the skin of our hands and possibly be ingested or breathed in by us. Gee thanks for the timely warning! Not!

3) Then there is the whole games thing going on in Facebook–animals, jewelry, mystery stories, etc.–offered by a third party app. Hey, Thanks for thinking of me when you invite me to play and have fun, but I won’t be joining you. Why? Because the first time I was curious and looked into what games participation meant, the whole thing about the third party app wanting to post to my timeline and post for me elsewhere without my permission was a non-starter with me. So, I have to content myself with the rare word game against the computer on my smart phone. Though my smartphone word game gives me no virtual prizes, nor strokes my ego about the level of difficulty I have mastered, I can live with that.

4) Attending events with food is also dicey at times. Pun intended. For the rare privilege of attending our fabulous banquet event Y, you can pay the whopping amount of x dollars for your meal. We all realize that x/2 is probably the true cost of the meal–and x/4a is going for overhead and ambiance and x/4b possibly going toward the fund that we’re fundraising for. I had two competing events again this year. So I opted to make a donation to Event Y–still have to do that–and attend event Z. Event Z was much more low key–not 600 people, but 40 people–less fabulous and glitzy, but just what I like. And though Event Z’s meal was also a bit pricey, the cost to value ratio was better. With the Z meal worth about 2/3rds of the cost, the other 1/3 was for tax and gratuity. And event Z’s cost was x-15, compared to event Y–the reason being was that Event Z was not a fundraiser, just a social gathering. Still, one or two ladies did mention the cost.   So choosing a venue that charges less overhead for the private room might be a suggestion for next time.

 

Okay, I am sucking on my fifth sugar free hard candy right now–apple flavor. Let’s see if I make it to my fifth point before I have to bolt.

5) Finally, coupling up with someone and marrying or cohabiting with them definitely has some fine print involved with it. With marriage, you promise to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, til death do us part. Goodness! That is some iron clad pre-nup boiler plate verbiage! Our car loan isn’t that proscriptive–they want our payment each month or they take the car. But with marriage–it being the car loan in this metaphor–you maintain an appropriate level of considerate and loving behavior toward your spouse, which lets you keep your driving privileges. *wink* And as to co-habiting? I never did that, so others will have to speak on that point. Though with regard to the time worn adage often mentioned as a cautionary tale is that the man won’t buy the cow if he can get the milk for free, in my limited experience men rarely drink real milk–at least my hubby doesn’t. So a woman holding out on providing euphemistic milk seems short sighted. And let’s face it, if that man wants to keep the cow, he better know how to milk right–or become a fast learner. And when in doubt love and laughter in equal measure have eased our lives nicely–like with this handsome and talented British actor bloke Richard Armitage portraying Claude Monet in The Impressionists [2006, right]. I was going to write lubricated our lives nicely, but then I thought better of it.

 

So as I continue to look out for the fine print as I go through my daily life, I take heart in a few things: if I’m not supposed to touch it then I’m not buying it, I will wash something before using it, and laxative effects are few and far between.