When pictograms go wrong

It's been pretty well established that the now-ubiquitous practice of using pictograms on signs instead of perfectly good words came into its own at Expo '67 in Montreal, when Paul Arthur decided that drawing stick men and stick women - among other things - would be easier than writing "the washrooms are over this way, pal" in forty or fifty languages. And since the 1972 Olympics we've all spent too much of our valuable time figuring out the, er, clever pictograms that have been developed to represent each of the Olympic sports. You know, come to think of it, I can't remember what the pictogram for synchronized trampoline looked like, although I expect I can hazard a guess.

After that convoluted introduction, on to today's craziness. We just bought a couple of new Dell laptops for the office. Said computers came in the standard (read far too big) cardboard box, with more cardboard and a disturbingly large and environmentally hostile amount of styrofoam padding. The computers were each wrapped in a protective bag with the following gem printed on it:

After cogitating on this for a moment in its proper context, it eventually came to me that this pictogram is meant to say something along the lines of "It's probably not the best idea in the world to stick your head in this plastic bag". Then I started thinking about some of the other things that the original artist might be trying to say:

- If you're choking, don't whack yourself on the back of the head with a cafeteria tray.

- When on an airplane, don't lie on your back and try to poke your head out the window if you feel the need to cough.

- When trying to fall asleep, don't wrap your fingers around your throat - you'll probably end up opening your mouth too wide and you'll start snoring, and I mean really, who can sleep with all that snoring going on?

- If you want to catch some Z's while riding in a car, make sure your shoulder strap goes behind the pillow. Sure, if you hit something your face will go straight into the dashboard, but won't you be more comfortable without that silly shoulder strap cramping your style? And oh yes, before I forget: to keep your head from doing that stupid bob-bob-nod-whoops thing, just put your hand around your throat and you'll be just fine.

I think I must have been bored at the office today.

PS I saw today that the American Idol 2007 tour (where people get to hear all the losers again, just in case anyone's forgotten why these ninnies were voted off the show in the first place) is starting soon. The main sponsor for the tour is: POP-TARTS! Honest, folks, I'm not making this up...