Mark Hill
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So work is stressing you out, you're worried about politics and the environment, and you know you're not eating properly or exercising enough. But at least you can do something relaxing to take your mind off of things for a few hours, right?
Wrong. Everything that seems relaxing is terrible for you. The Universe is trying to destroy you and everyone you care about the moment you let your guard down. Here's how!
So it's the weekend, and you've decided to enjoy your time off by taking your kid to the local playground. Don't let the friendly pastels fool you, though. This place is a crucible where innocent children are turned into battle-hardened tweens, scarred by countless scrapes and bruises. But at least the humble slide seems like it should be a respite from the carnage, especially for little kids. In fact, maybe you can even go down it yourself ... and doom your child.
If you go down a slide with a toddler in your lap, either because they're nervous about doing it solo or you just want to briefly recapture a fleeting sense of joy, you're running (sliding?) the risk of causing a lower leg injury. An analysis of slide-related injuries (of which there were an estimated 352,698 among American children under six between 2003 and 2015) revealed that a huge chunk of the wounds were to the lower body. That didn't make sense to researchers. If a child catches their feet on the edge of a slide, they shouldn't have enough momentum or body weight to cause any damage, because they're slow and weak and won't even put in an honest day's work in the Cracked coal mines anymore. But if you add the weight and speed of an adult who's holding them, suddenly there's enough momentum to really mess up an itty-bitty leg that gets caught and wrenched back.
We're not calling for a slide prohibition enforced by cold-hearted playground police, but if you do slide with your kid, keep their limbs carefully tucked in so you don't break them like some lumbering oaf petting a rabbit. Or just pretend you'll slide with them, then shove them down on their own at the last second. That's the safest way to keep them from becoming a weird statistic, and you'll teach them a valuable lesson about the inevitability of betrayal.
So the playground didn't go as planned, and now it's time to drive home (or maybe, depending on how things went, to the hospital). At least it's a beautiful sunny day ... and all of those UV rays we get on beautiful sunny days are pounding through your car window and into the left side of your body. Enjoy skin cancer!
Susan Butler, M.D./Skin Cancer Foundation"Death by trucker tan" seems like a terrible way to go.
Dermatology patients generally have more sun damage (wrinkles, sagging, spots, cancer, strange marks that reveal a tremendous prophecy, etc.) on the left side of the body, and that's apparently because, while car windshields are specifically designed to block UVA rays, the side windows don't get the same treatment. The driver's seat, therefore, gets bombarded with the sun's, to use the technical term, "evil energy."
And since UVA exposure adds up over time, all that driving you do over the decades creates a slow but steady accumulation of sun damage. If you live in one of those weird countries that drives on the right side of the road, then the opposite effect is seen. But at least then, in a continuation of the opposites theme, your country likely has a robust national healthcare system to help you address the problem.
This doesn't mean that you need to bundle up in a ski jacket whenever you drive to the grocery store, but if you're the sort of person who's behind the wheel a lot (long-haul truckers, road trippers, people driving to Alaska in an effort to escape the various factions vying for control of their soothsaying powers, etc.), it is recommended that you take a few basic precautions. Sunscreen is the obvious solution, seasonally appropriate protective clothing helps too, and if you're perpetually on the road because you're a traveling encyclopedia salesman, then you can apply a film or tint to your window (if legal where you live; please do not cite advice you received on Cracked if you are arrested for suspicion of being a roving sex offender). What's important to remember is that the sun is perpetually trying to kill you, even when you think you're safe.
God, what a day you've had so far. Time to unwind with a drink. Why not step out onto the porch, whip up a margarita, and then get ready to take another step toward skin cancer when you're driving yourself to the hospital because of the burn you're about to get?
Lime juice, a key ingredient in many delicious cocktails, reacts with sunlight when spilled on skin to cause a rash that, while initially mild, can turn into a painful blister over the course of 72 hours. At its worst, you can end up with a second-degree burn, and as an added bonus, the scars and discoloration that follow can last for months or even years. The phenomenon is called lime disease, because wordplay helps ease the pain.
Katykidk/Wikimedia CommonsWell that sure took the fun out of happy hour.
As the name implies, most cases occur when people squeeze limes to make margaritas while outside, although lemons, grapefruits, celery, and parsley, among other fruits and vegetables, can also cause the reaction. But let's be real, you're not tending a garden or snacking on celery while out for a run; you're getting drunk in your backyard. So keep an eye out for stray lime squirts, and if any juice gets on you, wash the affected area with soap. And then make another damn margarita, because you're not about to let some burns and long-term cosmetic damage get in the way of your hard-earned buzz.
Great, so now drinking is ruined too. You might as well start eating healthy like some kind of asshole, because at this point your skin's going to need all the help it can get. So for dinner you decide to chop up some avocados, because you've heard they're good for you, and put them in whatever avocados go in, other than guac for your 17-cheese-and-12-meat nachos. You grab an avocado and a knife, and oh my god it's right back to the hospital with you.
"Avocado hand" sounds like something baby boomers made up to decry millennials, but it's a real term -- albeit a casual medical euphemism for "slicing your fucking hand wide open." Out of unfamiliarity with the fruit and its innards, people are chopping avocados and either hitting the hard pit inside or successfully rendering the fruit atwain, only to tempt fate by hacking at the pit with a knife to remove it. Either way, the knife will bounce off the pit, or the pit will rotate and slide, and the knife will suddenly be lodged in your palm.
The cuts can often be so nasty that intricate surgery is needed to repair nerve and tendon damage. In extreme cases, the injured hand never fully recovers its functionality. Oh, and the wounds come with both a nasty risk of infection and a nasty risk of having to put up with endless jokes from your friends and family.
Natashaphoto/Adobe StockA sharp knife, a soft palm, and a fruit whose hardness runs from "unset gelatin" to 'collapsed star" ... what could possibly happen?
The epidemic is somewhat seasonal (a lot more avocados are sold to a lot more people who don't know what they're doing around Cinco de Mayo than, say, Christmas), but one doctor claimed to see a case of avocado hand every week, and another said he gets four a week. And that's not even counting the patients who said they got in a bar fight because they were too embarrassed to admit that they'd hurt themselves trying to cut open a fruit. So when you decide to forgo a mortgage payment and buy a bushel of avocados, either carefully cut around the pit or just remove it with a damn spoon.
Mark is on Twitter and wrote a book that won't hurt you.
You could still tint your windows, if you really wanted.
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