Mike, we’ll help you out: When you light a firecracker, avoid sticking it up your nose, or even worse, in the darkened anal area where you appear to store your head.

Cathy, where have you EVER sen something labelled as “self-heating” that you put in the microwave?!?

Of course, the warnings regarding metal and arcing are plentiful in the microwave’s instruction manual. I read one that informed me not to “deep fat fry” in the microwave.

A more logical policy, perhaps, would be to make consumers take a test, like a driver’s license test, before they can buy a microwave oven. Anyone dumb enough to believe they can stick whatever they like in a microwave oven, unless there are bright orange hazard labels on the product, should have to cook what they eat the old fashioned way. (And no sharp utensils, either.)

At some point, human beings need to learn to look both ways before crossing the street, to not stick their fingers in the electrical outlet, to not spill hot beverages on themselves, and to not put metal in the microwave except under controlled circumstances after reading the label. That’s what parents are for. One can’t expect to learn common sense on the back of a can of latte.

It’s not just Campbells. Chef Boyardee and Hormel micromeals have lids made entirely made of metal. Granted most of it comes off before microwaving (they are clear about you needing to do that) but you are still left with a metal rim that, nonetheless, you are supposed to put in the microwave. Anyone with experience with that kind of “self-heating” container might easily therefore think there was something about this particular “self-heating” design as well that also negated the apparently not-absolute “don’t put metal in the microwave” rule.

It isn’t as simple as a “don’t put a metal fork” in the microwave. People have experience with metal forks and know they don’t belong there. But if they do have experience with prepared meals they might very well believe that they do, in fact, belong there unless they are specifically told they don’t.

It isn’t about litigiousness; it’s about what people’s reasonable expectations should be of how things work in an increasingly complex world.

I would rather live with danger than, for example, have my beautiful new sports car’s appearance marred by multiple, ugly, un-removeable warning labels on sun visors, nav system, glove box doors, etc.