THIS IS SERIOUS, FOLKS

So my mother in law signed me up on a listserv from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which notifies you of recalls on childrens toys/products/apparel. I get about one a week, sometimes more. Evidently, there's a lot of stuff that should be recalled and that's why you need us lawyers: TO PROTECT YOU FROM THINGS THAT HURT. The emails are actually pretty handy, because as a parent, you need to know these things.

Typically, the recall is for lead-based paint on kids jewelry; or for choking hazards, when small pieces fall off a toy and a kid swallows it; or recalling hooded jackets and sweatshirts because the string in the hood could get caught in the bus door and could choke a kid as the bus drives off. I'm just saying. I guess kids choke on things a lot.

But the email I got today was the first of its kind -- and it was so disturbing that I read the entire thing instead of scanning for the product, determining we don't own one and deleting the message from my inbox. The headline on the email:

Pool Toys Recalled by Wild Planet Toys Due to Risk of Impalement Injury to Children

Impalement! Dear God! What kind of toy can impale a child? What company is actually selling sharp, pointy objects in the guise as toys? Who would do such a thing?

So I had to read more:

Name of Product: Jet Streamers(tm) Water Blasters Pool Toys

OK . . . a pool toy? Sounds like a water gun . . . is it fitted with a bayonet? Are kids jabbing each other and . . . impaling each other with water guns? I kept reading:

Hazard: When partially filled with water, the pool toy can stand
upright on the pool floor with the rigid narrow end pointed upward, posing an impalement risk.

OK . . . I can see that, having spent many a summer day in a swimming pool as a kid. Toys tend to get water logged and sink or float depending on the amount of water they've sucked up. But, impalement? I mean, come on, really now, when I think of impalement I think of Vlad the Impaler (AKA Dracula) and the opening scenes of that Dracula movie with Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Gary Oldman, and Anthony Hopkins . . . yeesh. (Although I did love Gary Oldman in that movie . . .) So has someone actually been impaled or what?

Wild Planet has received one report of an impalement injury to an 8-year-old girl who landed seat first onto a Jet Streamer left in a swimming pool and received a puncture wound.

Impalement injury! Seat first! Puncture wound? Is this thing sharp, i.e. bayonet-on-water-gun-sharp?

Jet Streamers measure 9-inches long with a bulbous water reservoir at one end and a rigid tapering handle containing a small water intake hole at the other end.

Oh . . . I see. Well. So if you have any of these "Jet Streamers" you may want dispose of them lest ye be impaled. Don't say I didn't warn you.