WSAZ in West Virginia has this amusing news story about a woman who bought a package of crazy straws at Wal-Mart for her 3-year-old daughter, only to find that two of the straws’ crazy shapes strongly resemble a penis.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMLdb5VdzNs]No question, the straws’ shapes do look rather phallic. Was it intentional? Hard to say. I have no idea what the design and manufacturing process for novelty straws is like. Are the shapes random? Was this particular one intended to look like something else?
The woman who bought the straws was shocked and appalled, devastated that her 3-year-old daughter would be exposed to such a vulgar item, even though of course a 3-year-old has no idea there’s anything unusual about the straw.
What made me laugh, though, was the fact that in her conversation with the reporter, the woman can’t even bring herself to say the word “penis.” I think that speaks volumes about her puritanical attitude toward sex and anatomy, when she thinks the medical, biological word for the male member is taboo.
LoL I read about this a few days ago on AOL news. It made me laugh. Apparently the straws are supposed to be rocket ships.
I don’t think I would have thought they were anything but rocket ships (or just random shapes) unless someone pointed it out, and even then I thought the resemblance was not very strong.
I guess that doesn’t stop some people from acting like it’s the downfall of civilization.
With all the ubiquitous sex kids are subject to in media and advertising, THIS is what a mother wants to get in a huff about? How ’bout we worry about the intentional stuff before we go off the deep end about random you-practically-have-to-squint-just-right-to-see-it shapes in a straw?
Too bad she didn’t find one in the shape of the Virgin Mary.
The world is just too full of stuff that could harm our kids. From now on, I’m not going to let mine out of the house. OH! But wait, this evil came INTO the house. Drat. I think we all better just go become hermits, live off the land, and have no outside contact. THAT will keep my kids safe.
Those straws are completely harmless! This woman is crazy.
Like Buster Bluth, I am partial to the phrase “Linus” to describe the male member.
Is her three year-old pregnant from them?
Don’t forget “Charlie Browns” thejoeinme
If we’re gonna start complaining about anything phallic-shaped coming near our children, the makers of Larry the Cucumber are in big trouble.
Look out for Popsicles too, those are the next thing to go.
I read about this a week ago and nobody said what the shape was supposed to be (except it looked like a penis). When I saw it I said, looks like a fish or rocket ship to me. But seriously, he kids aren’t going to say “it looks like a penis.” If they do, something is wrong with them, not the straws.
That’s why they’re “fun” straws.
“The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill!”
I thought they looked like Liberty Bells.
She reminded me of sex ed teachers in movies, such as Teeth, who can’t even bring themselves to say the dreaded proper names of human reproductive organs.
Ahhhhh…..now I know why I’ve had to return them all at work! I didn’t hear anything about this, until all these packages of straws came back to me to send out. I’ll have to tell my associate at work about it & we’ll have a great laugh at Wal-Mart!! This lady is probably one of the same ones who make us send back all the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit editions, because they’re too racy. It’s sad when you have to go to the desk to get a SI, because it’s going to corrupt little kids faster than you can say “Huh?”
The Daily Show needs to have a segment about this, preferably Jason Jones reporting!
huh it looks more like a rocket
Maybe the straws are like an ink blot test.
Maybe it’s just my experience in the news world, but what annoys me most about this clip is not the shape of the straw, but that the news team spends more time talking about how they investigated this, than the context of the story. Silly reporters, I don’t care what process you took to get this story.
Context requires work and intellectual honesty, and none of us really want it anyway. We want to get roiled up and post even more out-of-context references on our blogs (not a reference to this blog).
Those are the smallest “rockets” I’ve ever seen……