This 'N That...And Bird Poop Facials

Yes, you read that last part right. First things first, however, let's get the "this 'n that" part of the story out of the way.

For the past two or three weeks now, we have been warned about the potential health risks from eating tomatoes that may have been infected with the deadly salmonella bacteria. Once the alarm sounded, grocery stores hastened to remove the offensive items from their shelves, and restaurants stopped serving them in salads and on sandwiches.

I was in attendance at a luncheon during this timeframe where they made a “public service” announcement to let us know it was okay to eat the tomato on the sandwich being served because it had been “vine ripened.” I guess that distinction made a difference. Anyway, despite this reassuring declaration, I noticed that a lot of people removed the would-be “death slice” from their turkey sandwich and set it aside.

Not me, I ate it…every bite. What can I say? It’s not everyday I get the opportunity to take on the grim reaper and spit in his eye. (The last time was during the great spinach scare last year.) Besides, I happen to like tomatoes. Good news on that front. Evidently, the powers that be have sounded the "all clear" and the consumption of the juicy spheres is no longer considered detrimental to one's health. Makes one wonder what will turn up next on the list of potentially hazardous food items. Keep reading.

Next, I was watching “Good Morning America” a week ago Friday when they did a report on…of all things…lemons. Yes, they tested lemon wedges from six popular family restaurants in New Jersey and what they found turned out to be a good deal more frightening than refreshing. At four restaurants, "GMA" found the lemons were tainted with various things INCLUDING fecal matter, and one sample was contaminated with E. coli.

The problem was not with the lemons themselves, but in how they were handled by the restaurant staff in preparing them for serving. Workers are supposed to wear gloves when slicing/cutting the lemons and use tongs to place them in your glass. Big surprise, that’s not happening and, evidently, people aren’t doing a very good job washing up after making that trip to the little boy’s/girl’s room.

Apparently, it is okay to squeeze the lemon juice into your drink, but instead of dropping that wedge into your glass for that added bit of “flavor,” which is what I used to do, simply set it aside. Bet you’ll think twice about asking for lemon with your tea next time you’re out a restaurant, won’t ya? I no longer request it.

And now from the “Holy Crap, Batman, You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me” category comes…bird poop facials. Yep, I could hardly believe it myself when I saw the article on this one. Apparently, high falutin’ salons in New York and London and other places are offering this new form of facial. What is perhaps even more astounding to me is the fact that women are actually getting them and paying…hold on to your socks…$180 a poop…ahem…pop for them.

So many questions verily LEAP to mind. The first of which is: Why? Closely followed by who the heck thought up this one? I mean, I have to seriously question the psyche of the person who is sitting around one morning…munchin’ on a Ho-Ho and sipping on a latte…when the light bulb goes off, and he/she sits bolt upright and blurts out, “Hey, I've got an idea. Let’s go gather up a bunch of bird crap and smear it on our faces. We’ll call ‘em facials and charge people $180 for their trouble. It’ll be great!”

Which then leads me to question the judgment of the person who wakes up one sunny Saturday morning and decides she has nothing else better to do that day, so why not scurry on down to the local salon and PAY them $180 to rub bird poop on her face. I want to meet this person because I’ve got some pretty funky stuff that has been growing in my fridge for a couple of weeks now. Perhaps I can convince her of the potential “beautifying” qualities of this bowl of gunk for a mere $50.

The salons hype the product by saying it’s “organic.” Yeah, right, like that makes all the difference in the world. News flash, it’s all organic, but if it’s coming out of a bird’s bottom, I hope I’m not gullible enough to fall victim to some so-called beauty “trend” and wipe it on my face. Granted, it’s not a very pretty face, but I don’t think a generous portion of bird crap would make it anymore appealing…although there may be some who would disagree with that statement.

Oh, well. Perhaps it is just a passing craze. But then I still don’t get sushi and caviar…two things that will never pass through these lips as long as I live. (Well, there's three things actually, but I'll forgo mentioning the third one here.)

I found the following video on YouTube that pretty much sums-up my feelings on the whole bird poop facial fiasco. It was posted by celebnewsasa and I thought was pretty entertaining.