This is right up there with the fact that you can no longer buy a children's chemistry set with anything good in it. Good in this case meaning anything that might blow up a little. Why, when I was a kid...we blew things up, ate cookies when we could get 'em, and generally ran with the wolves. And we turned out okay!

I think the overprotection thing's going a bit far. And "Cookies are a sometimes food"? There is zero poetry in that.
 

I had one of those chemistry sets. All the bottles had the same warning: "Keep out of reach of small children." I must have been like eight at the time.
 

My point exactly! You turned out fine and you have your eyebrows and everything!

I had this great toy my mom found at a garage sale when I was, oh, five. You made plastic critters with it. It had little molds--I think they were made out of lead, but that can't be right!--and you filled them with liquid plastic goop from squeeze bottles. Then you put the mold into the heating unit until the critters had cured.

It was eight kinds of wrong. Liquid plastic? Curing? In lead? Over an open electrical element? Did I mention that you lifted the molds in and out with what was essentially a bent piece of wire?

Now that's the ticket.
 

I can't resist linking to this page with the Creepy Crawlers commercial. Should bring back some fond memories for you, assuming this is the kit you mean.
 

Heather, you found it! You found it! I could not for the life of me remember what it was called. Now I can go look it up. Thanks!
 

Awesome. Nowadays that motto -- "Mold hundreds of bugs in plastic!" -- just begs for a lawsuit.
 

and I dunno, maybe it's just years of exposure to gummi-everythings, but those bugs look mighty tasty.
 

Heather, sweetie? Don't eat the jelly shoes, hokay? Not for eatin'.

And as it happens, there is a Creepy Crawlers-style kit for making gummi stuff.
 

(removing chewed plastic heel from mouth) Nuts.
 

It embarrasses me when I snort when I laugh even when I'm alone. Thanks a lot, Heather.

This reminds me of a story I heard once about a woman who sued the makers of her contraceptive jelly because she got pregnant using it. Don't know if it's true. But apparently, instead of using it the way you're supposed to, she ate it on toast.

I'll wait for you to stop shuddering. Okay? So in court, they asked her, "didn't you see that the directions said to use the product vaginally, not orally?" And she said, "in the heat of passion, who has time to read directions?" And my reaction is, in the heat of passion, who has time to make toast?