"Booking Through Thursday"

"Desperation
"What’s the most desperate thing you’ve read because it was the only available reading material? If it was longer than a cereal box or an advertisement, did it turn out to be worth your while? "
Labels! Toothpaste tubes, shampoo bottles, food labels of every sort, vacuum cleaner manuals, appliance warnings - - I've read them all and more in times of wild-eyed, panting, hair-on-end reading desperation. Many of those times were during adolescence when I was literally unable to do without reading something every waking moment.
Did it ever turn out to be worth my while? Sometimes. I found recipes on food labels, including one very tasty recipe that I've never been able to locate again in thirty years. I found some hilarious warning labels over the years, warnings that could almost cause one to despair over the state of mankind. I mean, really, who knew there were enough people who tried to use blow-dryers while showering or bathing to make warning labels necessary, or that enough people used shop vacs to pick up hazardous waste so that the manual had to tell us not do that? Thanks to my desperation reading, I learned that there is a myriad of misuses of everyday things.
(submitted by Moon Rani)