Active ingredient

Everybody does it: looks at labels. Not just for calorie or fat or carb content, but just out of curiosity. I mean what the heck is IN Cool Whip anyway? How does the tyre inflater-in-a-can know where the hole is? How do they get instant grits do be grits ... instantly? Why can't they invent a popcorn that only produces 'old maids'?*

So we read labels.

I myself was perusing a can of Fresca for caffeine content (I'm addicted to diet coke but even I need a break sometime) when I was arrested by this tid-bit in the ingredients list: Glycerol ester of wood rosin.

Who the hell is Ester** and why is she putting wood rosin in my Fresca?!

WOOD ROSIN? OK ... wood is, like, wood, right? Like the stuff I build chicken pens out of? And rosin ...

Don't you use rosin to seal, uhm, wood to preserve it? Are my insides now sealed in a deep, glossy lacquer much like a table at an old pizza joint? Is this why I didn't get preggers months ago?

No ... wait ... That's RESIN. Rosin. Isn't that the white powdery stuff dancers dip their toes into to increase traction? (that was the best part of my ever-so-brief stint as a taker of ballet: playing in the rosin tray.) Yes, and you put it on your hands as a gymnast (short stint at that as well, me), and your bow as a cellist.

It increases friction.

So the lining of my digestive tract has a high drag coefficient thanks to my Fresca intake?

Bloomin' 'ECK!


On a lighter note, there's my bottle of Coppertone SPF8. On the back it says, helpfully: "This non-greasy formula is also hypoallogenic and non-comedogenic ..."

So ... presumably no one will laugh at me if I use it?

Man, I could've used this stuff when I was in school!

Diet Coke, by the way, is basically - boringly - just water, colour, and aspertame (or as my Dad calls it: NutraDeath). So it's just water. Dark ,sweet, v. expensive, water.

The ingredient list of my Equate brand petroleum jelly is downright comforting : "White Petrolatum"

One wonders: Is there red pertolatum? Blue? Green?***

I'd like to go on, but I couldn't work up the guts to check labels on some of the food in the fridge. I mean pressurized cheese spread? HOT DOGS? One shudders to think.

I also just got back from the sale (where I -yes - saw Ultimate Mullet Woman. Someday I will get up the 'nads to take her pic. In the meantime amuse yourself with the facsimile to the right. Just imagine the back looking like she'd styled it with ... white petrolatum) and I'm about slap wore out (as they say. Pronounced: "slap woe-out"). I swear I could go straight to bed right now but I have a truck full of stuff from the sale (including a blonde wood mission-style toddler bed) and stuff from the dump (including a pop up tent and an oak side chair) that I must go fondle ... erm, unload.

*Contrary to popular belief, an 'old maid' is NOT an unpopped kernel. It is a kernel that cracked open, but never 'popped' inside out. They taste delicious and are the best part of a bag of popcorn.

**Science geek corner: an Ester is formed by the reaction between and alcohol and an acid. Hmmmm. Jack Daniels is and alcohol and Diet Coke is acidic. Perhaps I should change my name to Ester.

***Petrolatum apparently does come in various shades of yellow/tan/amber etc.