It's Your Own Damn Fault

Every can of aerosol whatever has a warning on it that says, "Contents under pressure. Do not puncture." Even the industrial-strength air freshener in our mens' rooms here in the office (don't ask) have that warning.

A woman in New York failed to heed those warnings in 2003, and in addition to getting herself covered in hairspray, burnt to death when the cloud of hairspray from opening the can was ignited by her furnace.

Now, her children are suing the company that manufactured the hairspray (it's Aquanet, by the way, a brand most famous because you can buy Aquanet cans with hidden chambers to store your valuables).

I'm not usually one to tell someone who died, or their relatives, that they deserved what they got. Truthfully, nobody deserves to burn to death, because it's a rotten way to go. And more often than not I take the side of the consumer when a product injures them - but this is one of those cases where there's no way that over the years this woman didn't once see that warning. And everyone knows that hairspray is flammable.

I guess what I'm trying to get across is that this isn't the sort of thing that should get money for the distraught kids.