I realize we're all idiots...but we can't really be THIS stupid, can we?

Good afternoon!

It's a rare Saturday post from, but I'm on my own for the weekend and thanks to a recent carpal tunnel surgery I can't put a lot of pressure on my right hand. Now this was amusing when it came to having to have Hubby help me with foundation garments and learning to do some of the more basic things with my left hand, but when I couldn't open a bottle of wine on my own last night....I realized just how eager I am to have full use of my hand!

No worries on the wine front, however. I got Skippy to pop the cork for me before he left for work at 10 AM.  I also had to teach him how to use the cork screw, so it was a teachable moment.  A parent never stops teaching, ever.

Anyway, I wanted to do something nice for Peaches' boyfriend, let's call him George  (because he plays piano so much like George Winston....brilliant.)  George is headed back home to Missouri to go back to school for music. A good move, but it means he and Peaches have to be apart and we all know that long distance blows.  So he's leaving this weekend, I thought I'd do something nice and
send him off with a coffee cake. My mother, believe it or not, has a great recipe that's ridiculously easy. It starts off with yellow cake mix and the ingredient list doesn't get much more complex from there.

I assembled the ingredients, all four of them, and began the baking process. How does one begin?  One opens the box of cake mix.  That's when I saw it...the thing that made me say, Um...really?

Stupid warnings have been around us forever.  Some we follow like, "Don't use the hair drier in the bathtub.'  Some we as a society ignore, like, "Don't stick Q-tips in your ears."  But many products have the "duh" warnings on them.  I realize it's all, as Hubby calls it, is CYA insurance  (if you don't know what CYA insurance is, look it up.) but it never occurred to me that manufacturers really think we're all complete idiots.

I looked at the box of cake mix and at the very top were the words, "Pull up here."  

Is this something we need?  Instruction on how to open a box of cake mix? It's a small box made of very thin cardboard.  It's not like it's hard to get into.  And hey, if you puncture a different part of the box and nip the bag inside holding the cake mix, well, it's a little messy, but it's still all in the box which means it's still all going into the bowl.  

Think about this:  This box goes through how many layers of printing to get all the colors and pictures on it and yet there's time for one more thing, instructions on how to open the box.  

Where are the bakers who can't manage this?  Is there a section of the population sitting there saying, "Wow, I could really go for cake and I'd like it fast. I have a box of cake mix...but I just don't know how to open it."

Here in the US we put a man on the moon, we've cured a bunch of diseases, we've developed countless modes of transportation, medical procedures, technology. We have free education until you're 18.  Higher education, while expensive, is pretty much every county in the country.  We have three year olds who can operate an iPhone.

And yet...

We need to put the instruction, "Lift up here" on a box.

Normally I'd blame Big Broccoli for this because Big Broccoli is behind everything else.  (think about it. Every single type of diet includes broccoli.  Not one other food can say that.  Big Broccoli is solid no matter what the health trend is.)  This time around I have to look elsewhere.  So I'm going to blame the Democrats...and the Republicans...because clearly both sides are in the pockets of BIG INK.

This is why a two party system doesn't work.  If we had a strong third party, we wouldn't have idiot warnings on cake mix boxes and then maybe cake mix would cost less than a dollar and I could afford to eat more. 

Of course, that's exactly what Big Broccoli would want.