I Am Declaring a Ban on Snack-Size Packages of Oreo Cookies

Fire extinguishers are everywhere in public buildings. Schools, factories, office buildings, retail stores - even in fire stations themselves! Yet if there was actually a fire, would anybody know how to use one? Who’s going to have the time to figure it out when there is a fire raging?

It’s not as easy as you might think. Read the instructions next time there is a fire in your building. You need to first determine what type of fire it is. Is it a Class A fire (wood, paper, trash), a Class B fire (flammable liquids) or a Class C fire (electrical). If you don’t know, the extinguisher might actually do more harm than good in this situation so just give up now and run for your life.

Next, you have to inspect the extinguisher. Check the nozzle to make sure it isn’t clogged. Make sure the seal is not broken. Is that Sally down the hallway with her dress on fire? Never mind that for now, before you can save her, you must first check the hose for crimping, kinks and other damage. Now ensure that the needle on the pressure gauge is in the green portion because a fire extinguisher will not work if it is not properly charged.

Sally is now screaming in agony. But ignore her for the moment. Do not panic. If you intend to save her, you must remain calm, take your mind off her suffering, and focus on reading the rest of the instructions on the extinguisher. You must now decide if you must evacuate or stay and fight the fire that is now reaching Sally’s hair. How much smoke is already in the room? Where is your nearest fire escape exit? Are you not already familiar with the evacuation routes in your building? If not, drop the extinguisher and find an EXIT sign before it is too late. Poor Sally.

But let’s say you do have an escape plan mapped out that has not already been blocked off by the raging fire. Great! Now, in order to proceed, you must familiarize yourself with the acronym P.A.S.S.

Now in order to actually use the extinguisher, you must locate and pull the pin (or ring) that unlocks the handle. Otherwise, the extinguisher will not function and Sally will surely die right in front of you while you fumble around like a lunatic, trying to figure out why nothing is coming out. Then, remembering the acronym P.A.S.S., you aim the nozzle at the base of the fire (that would be Sally’s kneecaps), squeeze the handle, and with a sweeping motion, proceed to spray Sally’s dress until either the fire is out or the extinguisher is empty.

Hopefully you are able to put out the fire on Sally before the extinguisher runs out, though if she survives, she’ll probably slap you with a pain and suffering lawsuit for all the time it took you to figure out how get the extinguisher working to save her.

Of course, the above scenario is assuming that the extinguisher was not trapped behind a thick pane of glass, with “In Case of Fire, Shatter Glass” stenciled on it. For if it was, you hopefully had time to find some kind of blunt instrument by which to shatter it. What is the deal with putting fire extinguishers behind a pane of glass anyhow? Are they trying to add yet another element of danger and difficulty to the situation? So in addition to worrying about smoke inhalation, burns and Sally’s lawsuit, now you have to worry about lacerating your hand with shards of broken glass as well.

Is it any wonder that when there is a fire, everybody just runs for the exits and damn the fire extinguishers trapped behind the heavy panes of glass?

This whole fire extinguisher business reminds me of the pre-flight “safety briefings” that the flight attendants give before take-off. How many times have we all flown on airplanes and how many times have we actually listened to the attendant, never mind understood what the hell they are talking about in the first place?

Those pre-flight safety briefings on commercial aircraft has that “going-through-the-motions” feel to it, doesn’t it? The attendants cheerfully pretend that we actually have a chance of survival in a true plane disaster situation and the rest of us pretend to listen attentively as we fill out our crossword puzzles, setup playlists on our iPods and worry about whether or not the bag we were forced to check at the last minute actually made it to those luggage carts that those underpaid ramp workers are busy tossing into the cargo compartment underneath us.

For example, if the airplane you are in suddenly depressurized at 35,000 feet altitude and that oxygen mask dropped in front of you - would you really calmly strap the mask on and then assist the person next to you like it says on the safety card? Or would you freak out, flail your arms wildly and scream “I’m going to die, I’m going to die!” at the top of your lungs, like they do in the disaster movies? I think most of us would be in that latter group.

Then you have the whole routine with the emergency door exit where they try to ensure there is a strapping young man sitting by there who can wrench the door open with his bare hands when necessary and help push the rest of us out after an emergency landing. I guess this is to make the other passengers feel more safe. Should I be offended that the attendants never chose me to sit in this coveted seat? Maybe I should work out more. I could sure use the extra legroom. Also, if we crash-landed, I’d be the first one out and the rest of you would be on your own. Sorry. But at least I’ll leave the door open for y’all.

Is it just me or does this “seat as flotation device” seem overly optimistic? If a plane was to suddenly ditch into the North Atlantic, how many passengers would have the presence of mind to first remove their seats, figure out how the straps work and then strap it on themselves before plunging into the icy waters? Have there ever been any passengers from a ditched airplane successfully rescued while floating on their seat cushion? I put that question to Google and did not come up with any answers. Got a lot of ads on furniture and pool accessories however.

Seems to me that if seat cushions were effective flotation devices, you’d see people using them at the beach and in hotel swimming pools. I think that instead of pitching their seat cushions as flotation devices, the airlines ought to check out the nearest beach equipment store for some real flotation devices. Of course it would probably be slightly disconcerting for rescue helicopters to come upon a party of plane crash survivors floating around on inflatable rafts and donuts with a few boogie boards in the mix, while slapping around beach balls and tossing Nerf footballs to each other.

I always wondered what it would be like to be born into a wealthy family, endowed with a trust fund sizable enough to ensure that I would never have to work for a living. What would I do with all that leisure time?

Well I think I found my answer in the people of Concord, Massachusetts, who recently were evidently so bored with themselves that they decided to hold a town meeting to ban bottled water. This is a town of “old money” and many of the residents are living off trust funds. With all this time on their hands, they become harping busybodies who concern themselves with such things as carbon footprints, exotic wildlife species, saving Darfur, and now apparently they have decided that bottled water is a scourge that must be eliminated.

So by a town hall vote of 403-364, the people of the town of Concord voted into law a ban, which basically amounts to, borrowing Prohibition-era lingo, a town-wide ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of non-alcoholic, non-carbonated tasteless beverages. To wit: bottled water.

That’s right. Bottled water. Not plastic bottles of Hershey’s chocolate milk. Not plastic bottles of Coca-cola or any other sugar-laden carbonated beverage. All those are still legal in Concord. Only bottles of pure drinking water have been declared contraband. So you can still walk into a convenience store in Concord and snag a bottle of Pepsi or a bottle of iced tea. But if you are caught with a bottle of plain old water, you are now subject to a $50 fine.

The people of Concord haven’t really given us a reason for the bottled water ban other than they wish to “make a statement” of some kind. Something about the waste generated by empty water bottles. I guess this means that all those park benches in Concord made with recycled water bottles can now be picked up and carted off to another town that will appreciate them better.

So now we are going to have an underground economy springing up in Concord that traffics in illicit water. Little old ladies are going to be pouring Evian into empty Dr. Pepper bottles and swagger around town brazenly breaking the law, daring the townspeople to catch them with their contraband. Criminals are going to be peddling bottles of Poland Springs out of the back of vans and station wagons. Bootleggers will be smuggling illegal bottled water through the nearby Estabrook woods from Billerica, dodging the town revenue agents (Revenoor Men) with machine guns blazing. There will be more material for the writing of country songs down in Nashville.

If you want to be the next Al Capone, set your GPS to Concord, MA and begin putting together your gang! The townspeople are going to need their water and they have the money (their Daddy’s money) to pay for it. I can see it now, Speakeasies with lookouts outside and aging yuppies inside, behind heavy curtains, sipping on illicit bottled water while Steve Winwood and Genesis/Phil Collins songs are piped through the loudspeakers.

In the spirit of banning things and making statements, I have decided to get in on the act also. As such, I would like to propose a ban on snack size containers of Oreo Cookies in my own town. I personally abhor the snack size packages of Oreo cookies and therefore I do not believe that others should have access to them either. Therefore, I decree that Nabisco immediately cease and desist the sale, manufacture and transportation of ALL snack-size packages of their Oreo cookies, and I am going to call a town meeting to make this so.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against Oreo cookies. In fact, as a kid, I used to eat them all the time. As a matter of fact, you could say that I obsessed over Oreos. I remember stealing entire sleeves of Oreos from my parents cupboards and smuggling them to my bedroom upstairs. I put them on the hot-water radiator where they would get warm and then I’d carefully unscrew the top cookie and eat it. By that time, the cream filling was warm enough where it would peel right off the bottom cookie and I’d put it aside while eating the bottom cookie.

I’d repeat this process for all the cookies in the sleeve and I’d end up with this mini-mountain of cream filling that I would then slam into my mouth all at once and get an instant sugar high.

Now if I were a kid doing this today and got caught, no doubt I’d be carted off to some psychologist where I’d be diagnosed with an eating disorder, an obsessive-compulsive disorder, and who knows what else. But back in the day, my parents would give me a whack upside the head (for raiding the cookie cabinet) and tell me to “smarten up.”

So getting back to the snack-size packages of Oreo cookies, they probably don’t bother me any more than bottled water bothers the bored busybodies of Concord, but in order to justify my existence in this world and to establish my self-importance, I would like to have them banned for everybody else. In my opinion, if you are going to have Oreo cookies, you might as well go whole-hog and get the full 18oz package with three sleeves of 15 cookies each for a total of 45. Screw the snack size. Who needs them? Not me. So Nabisco, if you know what is good for you, cease and desist your silly practices before I am forced to call a town meeting and force your hand.

It also looks like they are trying to OUTLAW N/A Beer also.

Like Ayn Rand opined, make enough laws and eventually everyone will become a criminal.

Plus, you're description of Concord is spot on! I used to work in the town and damn... The bikers are so arrogant, peddling down route 2, daring the vehicles to try anf go around them. A year or two ago while I was there, one got smeared by a truck at that intersection.

Have you ever seen the "zombies?" These aged hippies wearing berets that trundle around in cirles at the town center waving signs that read, "we walk with those who suffer because of war." They do it only on Friday mornings, and then only if the weather is nice. If not, those who suffer because of war will just have to get on without them.

And the rich little sh!ts driving around in daddy's BMW with their designer haircuts who have never worked a day in their lives.

Yes, quite a town.

While the snack-size Oreos packages contain such lovely, wholesome goodness...give me the bulk box from Costco any day...and a gallon of milk.

That is so true! I drive through the center on my way to work every day - I always know the weekend is here when I see that group of aging hippies.

There is another guy I see from time to time that holds an IMPEACH OBAMA sign on the same spot. I always give him a honk. But he's always alone.

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