Thursday, 10 November 2011

Lollipox and Poison

The world has gone completely mad. No, I’m not talking about the Eurozone crisis. I was reading the paper this afternoon over a bowl of soup and a roll, when two articles I read jumped out at me, slapped me round the face with their utter lunacy, and irritated me for the rest of the day.

Ridiculous Article Number 1
Some genius in America has come up with an idea to help parents who are keen for their precious little ones to catch chicken pox at an early age in the belief that it’s less serious when caught young. No, it’s not parties where people are invited to mingle with pox-ridden children in the hope that they catch it too - apparently these are already quite common place. No, it’s one giant American step further than that. She is selling ‘lollipox’ on the internet. Catchy name hey? Well these little beauties are certinaly ‘catchy’ – they’re  lollies that have been licked by a pox-infected minor. Yes, you heard me correctly. Oh and not only is she selling germ-covered lollies, she’s charging about £30 a pop!! Speechless!

Ridiculous Article Number 2
A certain lady who writes for a well-known paper has a column in which she regularly rants, raves and ridicules people. Today, she turned her wrath on women. Or more specifically, women who have the audacity to take maternity leave or have days off sick.  Firstly she vents about receiving an out of office reply with a maternity leave message with a list of alternative contacts. Then, she raves about some poor contact of hers who has been off unwell for a few days. Now, what really got my goat about this was that after explaining the scenario, she went on to say “I just don’t understand the lack of work ethic in young women today”. Er, hang on a sec, isn’t that a bit of a dramatic leap?? She then ends this poisonous article by concluding “if ever I employ a woman again, I’ll make jolly sure she’ll have already gone through the menopause”. Great, well that’s a wonderfully rational comment isn’t it? And so helpful for women everywhere who work their arses off every day competing with men in the workplace. Oh by the way,  did I mention that the journalist who wrote this recently admitted to trying to trick her partners into getting her pregnant when she was younger.  She failed. But maybe her articles would have been more pleasant had she succeeded.

x

5 comments:

  1. Wow! On both counts! Pox parties and lollipox - I'd never heard of such things, although I believe chicken pox is meant to be easier the sooner you get it, and if parents can engineer it so children have it when it won't clash with something huge at work, I guess that could be quite useful.

    As for the journalist, she must be looking for reaction and controversy so I'm not going to give her a second thought. Silly mare.

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  2. I heard the lollipox thing and thought it immoral. Even the chicken pox parties are a dreadful idea. Children can be very ill from chicken pox.

    As for that journalist - there are laws to stop people like her from living in the past. The future is to make working life flexible for both women AND men with families. Who does she think is going to be the next generation of tax payers to keep her in her old age? I agree with Chatty Baby - silly mare!

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  3. Ewww! and Bloody Cow were my first reactions to those two articles! What on earth were you reading? Germy lollies? What next? A Poxy-toilet seat?? I've heard of Pox-parties before though. And as for the jour no, I totally agree with Working Mum - she is clearly being provocative, although I have noticed a worrying amount of articles recently about non-mums ranting on about having to "pick up the slack" when mothers work part-time or go on mat leave... don't even get me started!

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  4. I read about this myself and didn't know whether to laugh at the ridiculousness of what some people will do or despair that these things are really happening!
    Also, as you're one of the few people that I follow, I've tagged you in my blog: http://wifeandmotherandstudent.blogspot.com/2012/02/12-things.html
    Would be really grateful if you'd have a look :)

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  5. Chicken pox is really terrifying. It’s one of my worries actually. I can’t imagine myself seeing my daughter suffering from the disease. Good things, we now have good medicines for chicken pox like creams and tablets to lessen the itchiness. Menopause, that would be a challenging part for me when get older.

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