Just How Stupid Do I Look?

(Don’t answer that, please.)

I use a sinus rinse to keep my allergies under control (along with a daily dose of Zyrtec-D and two shots in the heinie every couple of weeks). It’s a great idea and if you have sinus problems (i.e. if you live anywhere with grass, dust, trees, pollen, mold or pets) I highly recommend it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, here’s how it works:

1) There’s a plastic bottle
2) With a black, dome-shaped lid
3) Which has a straw kind of thing that goes to the bottom of the bottle
4) You fill the bottle with distilled water
5) Warm it for a few seconds in the microwave
6) Add some saline from a packet
7) Screw on the lid
8) Then squeeze the bottle to squirt the solution up one nostril
9) And it exits via your other nostril
10) And then you repeat with the alternate nostril

(Okay, that’s kind of gross -- hope you weren’t snacking at the computer.)

Anyway, the instructions recommend heating the water 5 seconds at a time and checking the temp before heating further.

Which makes sense. It generally takes about 25 seconds, but that can vary by 5 or 10 seconds, depending on how cool the water is. (Which in turn is controlled by the Thermostat Nazi.)

So I’m good with that. It’s the next section of the instructions that bugs me, where it says, in large type: DO NOT SQUIRT BOILING WATER UP YOUR NOSE!

Because I find myself thinking that if anyone is actually stupid enough to do that, maybe, for the good of mankind, we should just let them.