Inspired by Free-Range Kids, I'm going to encourage other adults to take a walk on the wild side today. To undertake at least one activity loaded with perceived (mostly artificial or vastly overstated) risks.
Some fun ideas I've compiled:
- Go for a run/walk in your neighbourhood, alone, without a cellphone. Bonus points for doing it after dark.
- Don't renew your CAA membership.
- Eat a hotdog from a streetmeat stand.
- Don't follow all 7 recommended steps to a perfect hand washing technique.
- Have more than one glass of wine in a single evening.
- Eat the skin on your roasted chicken or fat on your steak.
- Talk to a stranger.
- Bake something with "expired" eggs.
- Dye your eyebrows with a do-it-yourself hair dye kit.
- Stop using your home and car alarms.
- Spend some time in the sun without sunscreen.
- Get a tattoo.
Or, just be a bad-ass like me and fill up your (BPA-free) water bottle at the regularly quality-tested water fountain rather than the (never-cleaned, sits in the sun all day, very likely never quality-tested) water cooler.
I am just so very sick of being told to be afraid. Especially about the wrong things.
Sid, I fill up my water bottle at the office kitchenette sink every day...and most days of the week some well-meaning person points out to me that our office does, in fact have a water cooler.
ReplyDeleteI've got many of those items on your list covered off, but I also live on the edge by packing my sandwich and chopped up veggies in plastic tupperware/rubbermaid type containers.
The only thing on that list that made me feel a little uneasy was the one about the expired eggs. I am a little funny with eggs probably due to early brainwashing.
Yikes, it sounds like you have it even worse than me on the water front. I did enjoy pointing out the person who told me the tap water was "stagnant" that, although I'm not a plumber, I was pretty sure the pipes that go to the toilets are the same ones that go to the tap so every time someone flushes it clears the lines.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit that after a few too many comments and getting knocked-up (pregnancy = the penultimate time of guilt, risk-aversion and unsolicited health advice), I caved and started packing my lunch mostly in glass containers. But damn are those things heavy!
With eggs and most food-stuffs, the BBF dates err on the side of extreme caution. Also, statistically, I think you’re far more likely to get sick from a fresh strawberry or spinach than an expired egg. The brainwashing is hard to ignore though.
Don't worry about the plastic containers as I am not reckless enough to nuke soup or leftovers in them...but I am reckless enough to leave the gym after my early morning swim practices with wet hair. Yup. Sometimes even without a hat.
ReplyDeleteYou swim?! Good lord woman, don't you know that if the chlorine doesn't kill you then all the people-cooties floating in the water certainly will!
ReplyDelete