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Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz |
Rabbit re-heated: A selection of RR highlights from Christmas columns over the decade.
Christmas is a wonderful time of traditions and rituals, none more heartwarming than the annual issuing of PR messages from officials notifying what will kill us in the next few weeks.
If the highway doesn't get you, or the paralytic shellfish poisoning (still with us in 2014!) global warming will. Sea levels will rise faster than you can run frontwards wearing flippers.
The Christmas decorations seem harmless enough, but don't be fooled, like the 19 people who have died in recent years from eating the ones that looked like chocolate.
Lit up like a tree
Then there's the 30 poor souls who perished in the UK in the last decade, by watering their Christmas trees while the fairy lights were plugged in.
And even if you aren't killed outright, you may just suffer nasty injury, such as the people who broke their arms while attempting to pull Christmas crackers. Or the 18 who suffered burns while trying on new jumpers with lit cigarettes in their mouths.
No, the biggest threats are the ones you can't see coming.
Chopping boards swarming with bacteria from uncooked meats that then transfer via the board to salads; germies hitch-hiking on knives from uncooked things; even exploding cans of pickled onions. Well, they haven't actually warned us about that one yet, but it sounded quite good so I think they should.
The whole kitchen is fraught with hazards.
It's a wonder any of us survive till new year, considering the death traps that lurk on the bench, the fridge and around the cutlery drawer.
A lot of the deadly threats come from poultry. Campylobacter, which many people mistakenly believe is a homosexual boy racer with his car stuck in reverse, is in fact a Latin word that translates to mean 'my folding beach chair mechanism won't stay locked in the upright position” – a real threat to holidaymakers. Then there's Gastroenteritis – a repetitive strain injury of the gut from fits of hysteria at inane editorials.
Related to hysteria is Listeria – laughing to death after one side of your lilo deflates, causing you to roll sideways in a pool.
Other hazards are E-Coli and P-Diddy, both which can make you feel quite ill just from listening to them. In some cases, threatening organisms are associated with the wrappers.
Chips are down
But probably the scariest food-can-kill-you story this year is that of the Italian grandmother who bought a sack of spuds at her local market and discovered a live grenade among them.
'I found a bomb in the potatoes,” exclaimed 74-year-old Olga.
'I went to the market to buy some potatoes and that's where the bomb was. But this bomb was covered in dirt, and I put it in water and got all dirt off. And then I realised it is a bomb.”
Police said the grenade, which had no pin and was still active, was the same type used by US soldiers in Europe in World War Two. It is thought to have been harvested along with the potatoes from a farm in France.
Maybe there's potential for the exploding pickled onions after all
Top 5 presents we'd rather see
And speaking of Christmas, a toy company releases every year its version of the ‘must have' toys for Christmas.
So here at Rogers Rabbits we've countered some of the spin and produced the list of top toys we'd like to see:
1. The Hot Wheels Trick Tracks Impounded Dotcom Garage Set.
2. Botox Barbie: Has no facial features left at all.
3. Action Man out of the closet: He's not going back in there unless he can take Ken with him. Includes wardrobe of dreamy pastels and matching accessories.
4. Ken's Home Detention Kit: Complete with ankle bracelet and parole application form.
5. New for 2014: Ken's paedophile jail kit, passport to Brazil, guard bribe cash and selection of hair pieces.