I confess I buy cheap cups and glasses for my family to drink out of every day. It started when they were so young that they would break stuff frequently and I did not want to pay a lot have to replace the broken stuff. Now I have this cupboard that holds only so many cups and glasses and when it looks like the numbers have gone down a little I buy whatever I see on sale or at a garage sale to replenish the stock.
Apparently my lackadaisical buying habit has gotten me involved in the latest recall. Last week I went to McDonalds and bought a batch of their Shrek glasses. Now I am faced with the dilemma - do I take them back to the neighborhood restaurant, just leave them in my cupboard or box them up as collector items?
Before you go getting up in arms about my precious children's health. My children are now 17 and 22. Not terribly likely to go about licking the outside of a painted drink tumbler. And if I was going to get cadmium poisoning it would have happened many years ago. I use to do this kind of water color based painting called Illumination which uses raw ground pigments, egg whites and water. Cadmium makes a lovely yellow paint color. Come to think of it I probably still have a smallish vial of it in my painting supplies. Even though it's been many years since I've painted in that style. Artists are really pack rats we never throw stuff away.
My other point is; do some of these recalls seem like just another case of excessive paranoia? Those of us who grew up between 1950 and 1960 can probably remember consuming and coming into contact with dozens of products every day that today have been carefully removed for the public's safety because they failed one purity test or another. Yet other products that are documented dangers to everyone remain on the open market. I remember my Mother saying something about how much dirt a kid consumes before they are 5 years old. I suppose the dirt in the 50s and 60s was so much cleaner then it is now and toys so much safer? I don't think so yet most of us are still here.
What if it turns out that white lab rats are just prone to diseases like cancer and emphysema?
Has anyone else gone through their home lately to purge it of dangerous substances. The exception here is people newly pregnant with their first. All first time parents go through this kind of purge. Once you have a couple of kids your house is either fully purged or your parenting style too loose to care. "Look little Johnnie has a penny in his hand I should snatch it away. Hmmm this ice tea tastes good. what was I saying?"
