This post is not a toy

Hello, hello. Fancy meeting you here. Seriously, go ahead and fancy that. Pretty crazy, eh? That's what I thought. I don't just use the verb "to fancy" willy nilly; I mean it. It's Wednesday, and it occurred to me two days ago that we've spent all of these Wednesdays together without me telling you a Wednesday-specific story. So here it is:

I took a class fall quarter of my sophomore year called "Intro to Hispanic Linguistics." As I've documented in this space before, the lower-numbered classes in the Spanish department had a larger percentage of non-native speakers, so I wasn't yet in my "hiding in the corner" phase. There was a fellow gringo named David who sometimes sat next to me. I'm having trouble picturing him and keep getting Chris Richardson from last season's American Idol in my head instead. He did look like that, but not exactly. He wasn't as annoying either.

In any case, David and I were chatting in class before the professor got there one morning, and he stopped mid-sentence. I followed his gaze over to the door as a female classmate of ours was entering. "Everything ok?" I asked. "Oh yeah," he said, "It's just White Pants Wednesdays, that's all." Like most of you would have in this situation, I said, "Uh, what?" "Yeah, that girl, she's so hot, and she always wears white pants on Wednesdays." This was about four weeks into the quarter, and the class met on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so I didn't doubt that he had ample statistical evidence to support his claim.

Naturally, I started noticing her attire. Sure enough, it was White Pants Wednesday the next week as well. He was definitely onto something, but I can't give him all the credit in the world. You see, she also wore white pants on some of the Mondays and Fridays too, which made his observation a little less mind-blowing. By the end of the quarter, I only remember one Wednesday in which she didn't follow suit (or follow pants in this case, I suppose). That led to a funny-sounding conversation about "no white pants on White Pants Wednesday" that probably confused the hell out of eavesdroppers.

I never know why some things stick more than others, but this one was all sorts of sticky. This was 11 years ago, and I find myself using that phrase all the time still. If I see a woman wearing white pants, I say aloud, "Hey, it's not Wednesday!" Sometimes I end up seeing white pants on an actual Wednesday, which usually leads to me saying something more along the lines of, "Hey, it's not - oh wait, it is! White Pants Wednesday in the house!" Juvenile? Oh sure. Completely out of my control at this point? You know it, sista.

Out of curiosity, are any of you wearing white pants today? If so, please let it be known in the comments section, for there would clearly be some powerful forces at work here.

Being a Wednesday and all, I often use this time for some random stuff in the realm of words. In chatting with my co-worker Rob, I went from talking about a word to ranting about a couple of things that piss me off. Care to relive that journey with me? Tough shit, here it goes:

I wondered aloud if the words "void" and "devoid" were basically the same thing. Or does the prefix in "devoid" make it mean "without without" instead? I have since looked it up and learned something in the process. No, they're not. "Devoid," as our friends at http://www.m-w.com/ tell us, means "being without a usual, typical, or expected attribute or accompaniment." The examples they use are "an argument devoid of sense," and "a landscape devoid of life." I never thought of it that way before, and I find that very interesting. That sort of thing is my bag, baby.

That topic of conversation led me to tell him how I don't like the phrase, "Void where prohibited." Well no shit it's void where it's prohibited. Basically all that phrase tells me is that someone has the ability to say that they're not honoring whatever deal is being advertised. What would happen without that warning? If McDonald's didn't say that their special on Big Macs was void where prohibited, would I have the right to demand that same deal at every McDonalds (even the airport ones)? I guess that was the basis of some lawsuit and now everyone puts it on commercials and ads to cover their asses.

On that same topic, I can't get over how ridiculous it is to put, "Warning: Contents may be hot" on an empty cup. It's a cup! What do you mean the coffee I ordered might be hot when this cup is used as the vehicle to get it into my stomach? The incredible degree of ass-covering that goes on blows my mind. At the end of almost every single radio commercial, they now spend up to ten seconds mumbling rules and restrictions as quickly as possible. I can fully understand a company saying, "Some restrictions apply, please call for more details." I'm fine with that. But rattling off three or four sentences so quickly that no one can understand them is solely for the purpose of avoiding lawsuits. They're not even pretending that it's to further inform the consumer anymore, just blatant ass-covering.

Last one before I stop, breathe deeply, and get my blood pressure back to normal (or 'alone pressure' according to the predictive text on my cell phone). "This bag is not a toy." Let's think about that for a second. Who is that warning for? There's only one answer: stupid people. Small kids who could possibly mistake a bag for a toy are too young to read that. Smart people already know that they should keep bags away from kids without being reminded. It must be for dumb people and dumb people alone. Should we really be directing all of our efforts at the lowest common denominator? That doesn't seem to be the most productive way to grow as a society to me, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe more people need reminders that their hot coffee is hot than I realize.

Ok, really last one: the whole "void where prohibited" thing made me think of another similar item that bugs me. I understand the reasoning behind it, but I always laugh at the mini candy bars or other similar foods that say something like "Not for Individual Sale" on them. Let's say a guy has a bucket of mini Three Musketeers bars that he's selling for $0.50 each and I want one. Before buying it, I realize that it says "Not for Individual Sale" on it. How does that change my position whatsoever? I still want it, and I still can only have it by paying for it. What am I going say? "Sir, you are not supposed to be selling this item in this fashion, and I am therefore confiscating it on behalf of the FTC." How many seconds do you think there would be between me finishing that sentence and me being threatened with violence? I say five tops. It would be less, but the sellers would probably need at least two or three seconds to get the confused look off their faces.

Now I'm really done. I hope you enjoy your Wacky Wordy White Pants Wednesday, gentle readers. Wow, it was almost an entire UOPTA post devoid of a "gentle readers" sighting. That was close. See you all tomorrow.