CPSC Notice 10/15/2010

Additional Injuries Prompt JAKKS Pacific® to Reannounce Recall of Spa Factory™ Aromatherapy Kits Due to Explosion and Projectile Hazards –

This children’s product was originally recalled in January 2009. Since that time, there have been additional injuries caused by the Spa Factory™ Spa Fantasy Aromatherapy Fountain & Bath Benefits Kits. Pressure from the buildup of carbon dioxide in the jars of Bath Bombs/Balls or Bath Fizzies that come with the kits can cause the unvented lids to blow off, posing explosion and projectile hazards. The flying pieces also can cause property damage. Additionally, the mixture of water with the Bath Bombs/Balls or Bath Fizzies can create citric acid. This acid can get into consumers’ eyes when the jars explode, posing a risk of eye irritation.

As of January 2009, CPSC had received 88 reports of exploding jars, including 13 injuries to children. Since that time, CPSC has received 12 additional reports of exploding unvented jars of JAKKS’ Bath Bombs/Balls or Bath Fizzies, including 13 additional reported injuries. The new injuries include irritated eyes, irritated skin and one eye injury from projectile jar lids.

CPSC Microfiction 10/15/2010

With only a preamble blip of picture, the feed was gone. And we continued to watch. As chairs were pulled from underneath heavily sedated patients, dropping us to the floor in fully subservient embrace of the rule of gravity. Drafted youth organization members of Purely Physical Cause and Effect Party, impassive faces blank as static field of electromagnetic distortion replaced newscast. Eyes automatically releasing anxious iris grip on focus, soft human lenses flexing back slowly, trained ease of first position. Black and white reduced to grey. They say static is residual time-traveling energy noise, in a Theory of Relativity sense anyway, visiting always, from the moment of the beginning until what is whatever is now.

Bath bomb. Took out the whole news room, the engineering room, the server room. The bathroom too, but that wouldn’t have affected the feed. An exothermic reaction in a teacup, or at least in a gift basket set with bath products, imported tea, service set to match, poured in custom carbon porcelain with metal wire reinforcement, jagged little children becoming-shrapnel with dreams of growing up to be grape shot one day. Sent by a dissident start-up, vengeance weapon made of salts and soaps, and something chemically reduced from a skin tightening lotion. A public response to an unfavorable column. Interview over.

We didn’t know that, until another newscast from another channel brought us all up to date. And so we sat, facing the screen. Reconnected with the world. Wondering where the remote was.

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.

After a month of latency, I checked back into the CPSC announcement RSS, and was overwhelmed by the results. Firstly, there was the subject of today’s microfiction, which was perhaps the most quintessential ever, at least in relation to the reasons I started this. It was a second recall, because the first had not stopped the injury reports. It was a children’s toy that turned deadly. It was a product, unfortunately named the “bath bomb” that chemically became an actual bomb. Not only were there explosion and laceration hazards, there were also chemical irritation hazards. TO CHILDREN. With a product as ridiculous as a “child’s spa”, whatever the hell that is. The only thing that could have piled on additionally, would be if the product also violated lead paint standards.

But then I scanned down the rest of the list–an entire month of product recalls. Which, to give the true effect, I will re-create here for you now:

- Briggs & Stratton recall Riding Mowers due to injury Hazard from Projectiles
- The Hive announces recall to repair Revl Carbon Road Bicycle Brakes due to Fall Hazard
- Ryobi recalls Cordless Drills due to Fire Hazard
- Iron Lover’s Bench sold exclusively at Ross Stores recalled due to Fall Hazard
- Green Mountain Vista Inc. recalls Roman Shades due to Risk of Strangulation
- Bravo Sports recalls trampolines due to Fall Hazard
- Alexander Designs brand Drop-Side Cribs sold exclusively at JCPenny recalled for repair due to Entrapment, Suffocation
- Castalon Frying Pans recalled by Tabletops Unlimited due to Burn Hazard
- Valco Baby recalls Jogging Strollers due to Strangulation Hazard
- Tike Tech recalls Jogging Strollers due to Strangulation
- PBteen recalls to repair Sleep and Study Loft Beds due to Fall and Injury Hazard
- Fire Alarm Control Panels recalled by Fire-Lite Alarms due to Alert Failure
- Trisonic Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs recalled due to Fire Hazard
- Home Improvement Books recalled by Oxmoor House due to Faulty Wiring Instructions
- Fisher-Price recalls Infant Toys with Inflatable Balls due to Choking Hazard
- Fisher-Price recalls Healthy Care, Easy Clean and Close to Me High Chairs due to Laceration Hazard
- Fisher-Price recalls Little People Wheelies Stand ‘n Play Rampway due to Choking Hazard
- Fisher-Price recalls Children’s Trikes Due to risk of Serious Injury
- Deaths prompt CPSC, FDA warning on Infant Sleep Positioners
- “S T U F F” and Paw Wall Hooks recalled by Midwest-CBK due to violation of lead paint standards
- Black & Decker recalls Cordless Electric Lawnmower due to Laceration Hazard
- Sunrise Medical recalls Quickie(r) Shark Bikes due to Footrest Failure
- Rugs recalled by Brumlow Mills due to Fire Hazard
- Molenaar LLC recalls Night Lights due to Fire and Shock Hazard
- Children’s Mood Rings and Necklaces recalled by D&D Distributing Wholesale due to risk of Lead Exposure
- Tea Sets recalled by The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf(r) due to Fire Hazard
- Children’s Hooded Jackets and Sweatshirts with Drawstrings recalled by Burlington Coat Factory due to Strangulation Hazard

My morbid interest, piqued by the first announcement, quickly diminished. I’m still oddly fascinated by these tales of anonymous suffering at the hands of our supposedly subservient consumer objects. But somehow, the thrill is gone. It is like watching a thriller film, and the killer just goes on killing and killing, nothing ever changing or being revealed.

These are companies you’ve heard of, companies you’ve never heard of, making objects you use, or maybe you would never touch in your life. All of them hurt people, or could, in a manner other than intentionally designed. With a fiendish, creativity intensity. And this will never stop. As long as we make things, these things will end up somehow releasing their stored energy against us. They cannot all be recalled, because we will continue to make more.

Strangulation by venetian blinds, and drawstring sweatshirts. Poisioning by paint, on beads and toys and clothing. Cribs that function as guillotines. Bicycles that work as human catapults. Wiring that melts, burns, and explodes. We used to worry about the plague. Witchcraft. Murderous barbarians building walls from our skulls. We don’t worry about these things anymore (mostly) but we worry about the places we make where we just might catch our necks. First world problems. Death by small parts.

In honor of celebrating this strange facet of the death drive we’ve created, I’m hereby closing the CPSC Microfiction series. This was always the way it was meant to be, and now that it is, I feel that it has fulfilled its function. I’ve reported, I’ve speculated, I’ve imagined, and I’ve fantasized. I might do it again if the moment and the product grabs me with that mortal consumer lust once again. But for now I think we’re complete.

So thanks for reading, and enjoy the last of the series: CPSC Microfiction #17.

Consume safely, America.

CPSC Notices 9/8/10

The Land of Nod Recalls Toy Vegetables Due to Laceration Hazard – The metal wire in the toy asparagus can become exposed, posing a laceration hazard to children. The firm has received a report of an exposed wire in the asparagus. No injuries have been reported.

Microfiction 9/8/10

Haven’t eaten anything since they put wires in my food. Five days ago. Starvation is beginning to affect me. Mentally. Physically, I felt weak and unbalanced by day two. Now my mind is working slower. More animal-like. Needs visualized using only the nerves in my spinal column. Hunger has stopped taking a form of a want, and is an stitch in the torso. Throb in the kidneys. Soreness in the arms, where the muscle is dissolving.

Better than wires in me.

I could inspect the food, go back to the store with wire in hand, making a lot of noise about a free replacement asparagus, double-cheeseburger-hold-the-wire. I know better. They get in eventually. Matter of time. Can try to prevent them, but I’m destined to be wired. It’s the way that it is.

Been thinking, last few hours, maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe you should just let ‘em win, Johnny. If it’s inevitable, why not? Never been a fighter. That’s why they go with wires. Fighters don’t get wired. Get killed outright, dragged to the streets, heads on lamp posts and built into walls. So who am I, other than a future human prawn, dangling on the end of the wire? Why be anything else? Shrink myself into skin, animal madness, cornered in the alley. Is that life? What is it?

They’re in my skin now, oh boy. Can see ‘em snaking in my veins. Never quite made it to animal, I guess. Wired now. No more asparagus for me.

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.

CPSC Notices 8/12/10

Circus World Recalls Wireless Video Baby Monitors Due to Overheating Hazard – Wiring in the baby monitor camera can overheat and emit smoke, posing a burn hazard to consumers. Circus World Displays has received two reports of the camera portion of the monitors overheating and smoking. No injuries have been reported.

Microfiction 8/12/10

Blue light, and he had hated the color. The insides of the trailer shone with it: bright against the water-damaged ceiling tiles, absorbed by the dark metal of the shelves and equipment racks, luminous on the front of his work shirt, dirt and grime illuminated. Blue glared up in front to his face and eyes from his clothing, a squinted halo on a humid day, a mist he couldn’t clear, repeatedly blink involuntarily. And then there was the screen itself.
The people walked by, in groups of universally ugly threes and fours, the occasional child straying across the screen and then running back to whatever person, place or thing might be serving as its caretaker. Occasionally a hot body might stray across the curved luminescence of the monitor, but it was too quick, the video feed refresh rate too staggered-full of white lines and blue ghosts… the mind couldn’t capture the image. The contrast was off, the color an approximation of light and shade only. The long hair was jagged lines, breasts were pixelated pits, exposed skin was bluish-white, bodies turned to drowning corpses in the bottomless cold lake of closed circuit.
A wave of mist and static blew across the screen, and he leaned forward to adjust a knob, blue square filling his picture. Wait–vertical lines, rolling thicknesses of mist, increased foreground brightness. Now he could see the flames. Goddamn it, those fucking kids have set fire to one of the cameras again!

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.

CPSC Notices 8/2/10

Miami Breaker Recalls Counterfeit Square D Circuit Breakers Due to Fire Hazard – The recalled circuit breakers labeled “Square D” or “SQD” have been determined to be counterfeit by Square D and can fail to trip when they are overloaded, posing a fire hazard to consumers. No injuries reported.

Microfiction 8/2/10

You feel it first. Feedback.
Then you think it. Feedback.
Will it work? Feedback.
Is that what I felt? Feedback.
Am I feeling what I’m thinking? Feedback.
Will what I’m thinking and I’m feeling work? Feedback.
Pause for a minute. Something happens here. Not thinking or feeling. Feedback.
Pick up the tool. Feedback.
Stretch your new limb. Feedback.
Think with the tool. Feedback.
Will it work? Feedback.
Is this the right tool? Feedback.
Do I know how to use it? Feedback.
Pause for a minute. Something happens here. Not thinking or feeling. Feedback.
Feel what you made. Feedback.
Think about what you made. Feedback.
Will it work? Feedback.
Is that what I felt? Feedback.
Am I feeling what I’m thinking? Feedback.
Will what I’m thinking and I’m feeling work? Feedback.
Pause for a minute. Nothing happens. Feedback.
Feedback.
Feel: Feedback.
Think: Feedback.
Work: Feedback.
Make: Feedback.
Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.
Overload. Feedback.

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.

CPSC Notice 7/8/10

PDi Communications Recalls Televisions Installed in Healthcare Facilities Due to Fire Hazard – A capacitor on the television’s power supply board can fail, posing a fire hazard. PDi Communications has received one report of an incident involving a flame in February 2010. No injuries have been reported.

Micro-fiction 7/8/10

It was a list of ingredients. It faded from vision as the thin text bent and blurred within its printed box. Now it was back. Gelatin. Glycerin. Polyethylene glycol. These were inactive ingredients. Where was…. He turned the small cardboard box over in his hand.
It was the remote control. He turned it over in his hand. There was a way these things were to point if they were have the desired effect. He mashed the buttons. No, that won’t work. One at a time. The noise got louder.
FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR WITH OUR NEW CAREERS KIT YES RIGHT NOW, TELL THEM ENOUGH WITH THE GRIND, THE COMMUTE, THE OFFICE POLITICS, AND BE YOUR OWN BOSS, WORK FROM HOME, MAKE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS A WEEK….
The cardboard box. There it was, in the other hand. Take two as needed, not to exceed twelve in a twenty-four hour period. If you consume more than three alcoholic drinks per day, consult your physician. The ingredients, the ingredients. Was there acetaminophen in this? Or was it the food coloring allergy? What was that smell? Plastic? Fire? Where was the phone?
The colored lines on the screen grew further apart. Waves, escaping the electromagnetic belts that ought to keep them where they were. They bent out into the room, across the white tile floor. There was foggy mist in the air, no peripheral vision. Or was it… smoke?
The screen burst into flames.

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.

CPSC Notices 6/24/10 (Stitched together from all seven notices pertaining to the companies)

Seven Manufacturers Announce Recalls to Repair Cribs to Address Entrapment, Suffocation and Fall Hazards – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), with the cooperation of seven firms, is announcing voluntary recalls of more than two million cribs to address drop-side hazards and other hazards that affect the safety of young children. The recalling firms are providing consumers with free repair kits to immobilize the drop sides or other remedies. Do not attempt to fix these cribs with homemade remedies.

The cribs’ drop sides can malfunction, detach or otherwise fail, causing part of the drop side to fall out of position, creating a space into which an infant or toddler can roll and become wedged or entrapped, which can lead to strangulation or suffocation. A child can also fall out of the crib. Drop-side incidents can also occur due to incorrect assembly and with age-related wear and tear.

Simmons Juvenile Products – CPSC has received 30 reports of drop sides that have malfunctioned or detached. Two children became entrapped between the drop side and the crib mattress but were freed without injury. Two other children fell out of their cribs when the drop side malfunctioned and one child sustained scratches due to the fall.

Million Dollar Baby – CPSC and Million Dollar Baby have received 43 reports of drop side failures. There were eight reports of children being entrapped between the mattress and drop side resulting in three reports of bruises to the head or upper body. Additionally, three children fell out of the crib when the drop side failed but they were not injured.

LaJobi – CPSC and LaJobi have received 40 reports of drop sides that detached or malfunctioned. In one incident, a child fell out of the crib when the drop side detached and sustained a bruise.

Jardine – CPSC and Jardine have received 47 reports of drop sides that detached or malfunctioned. In one of these incidents, a child was found unconscious after becoming entrapped and was hospitalized. Nine other reports involving entrapments or fallouts resulted in scratches and bruises, including one child who sustained a broken collarbone.

Evenflo – CPSC and Evenflo have received 31 reports of drop sides that malfunctioned or detached. One involved the entrapment of a seven month old boy between the drop side and the crib mattress. He sustained bumps and bruises to his head. Nine children fell out of the crib when the drop side detached, unlocked or fell off. Seven of those children sustained minor injuries, including bumps, bruises and cuts. Fourteen other incidents involved no injuries. In addition, CPSC has received two reports of children who became entrapped when the mattress support detached in one corner of cribs manufactured between 2000 and 2004.

Delta – CPSC and Delta have received 57 reports involving drop sides that have malfunctioned or detached, resulting in three entrapments, including two reports of bruises and one child who fell out of the crib. Additionally, CPSC is aware of 19 reports in which stabilizer bars were installed upside-down, resulting in 10 mattress platform collapses. Two children were entrapped but freed without injury and one child sustained scratches.

Childcraft – CPSC has received seven reports of the drop side failing. In one of those reports, the child became entrapped in the gap created by the drop-side failure. In another incident, a child fell out of the crib and suffered bruises to his head when the drop side disengaged.

Microfiction 6/24/10

I put up another gate. It held, and I turned to the left, and then it fell, clattering down to the floor, bouncing back and forth on its corners. I put down the next one, and picked up what had fallen. I drove the anchors deeper, choosing fresh spots. It held. I waited a moment. Yes. I picked up, now, the next, and began to work. The corner came loose, and swung down, banging into my knee. Shock of pain vibrated and, I grabbed my kneecap, cursing, to make sure it was intact. I got the bolts in place. Turned left again, and picked up the next. On a hard spot, and I couldn’t get the anchors deep. I struggled, pushing my weight against the bolt, driving it deeper, swore, flailed, screamed with exertion. As I spasmed against wood and metal, I felt it slip into place, and I released my grasp. Too soon. I pressed on the far edge, and it pivoted toward the wall, ripping out the far anchor. It levered outward, my weight transformed into acceleration, and it slammed across the narrow space into the opposite gate, swinging, loose and dropped, which swung down and back to the last gate to the left of it, also knocking it loose. In frustration, Hanging loose on a single anchor, the last droppe to the ground, clattering on the rest.
I was a child. I couldn’t do this. I was no better than a helpless infant.

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.

CPSC Notice 6/16/10

Entertainment Centers Recalled by American Signature Due to Fall Hazard – The recalled entertainment centers’ shelves can detach and fall onto consumers when the entertainment centers are moved. American Signature Inc. has received four reports of the shelf above the television collapsing, causing two injuries. Injuries include a child who was struck on her fingers and an adult who required stitches to his mouth. There were also two reports of minor property damage.

Micro-fiction 6/16/10

The light flickered as the channels changed. The men and women moved into one another; their words stuttered and combined into a meaningless language of grunts, moans, and ejaculated syllables; their hairstyles merged and blended in a cloud of color; their bodies met and twisted, finding joint and union in the open, secreting orifices of the moments between shots; the scenes spun around each other, pivoting on access points of revolving light, wall, fashionable furniture, and the littered food items, the stars and planets of colliding galaxies and boiling nebulae; this plot of utterly doomed human astrology spelling out the places and times, war and seduction, fatigue and respite, story and meaninglessness, crashed down like disintegrating airliner across open sea en route to paradise, leaving vast swaths of narrative wreckage floating in slicks of emotional mirth, and we were meant to receive this eucharist as the point, the entertainment value, the take away message, the happy ending, the orgasm before bed; but suddenly the whole thing came detached from the wall, smashing downward and exploding in glass and hot fragments of ceramic, a massive shard of jagged plastic housing flipping outward and catching me on the mouth, ripping open my skin a good two inches upon that edge and sending a flood of hot iron across my tongue and down my throat.

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.

CPSC Notices 6/15/10

Crate and Barrel Recalls Succulent Plant-Shaped Candles in a Pot Due to Fire Hazard – The wax in this candle melts quickly inside and overflows outside the pot and can ignite, posing a serious burn and fire hazard to consumers. The firm has received one report of the wax igniting. No injuries or property damage were reported.

Risk of Strangulation Prompts Recall to Repair Roll-Up Blinds by Chicology – Strangulations can occur if the lifting loop slides off the side of the blind and a child’s neck becomes entangled on the free-standing loop or if a child places his/her neck between the lifting loop and the roll-up blind material. No injuries reported.

Micro-fiction 6/15/10

Chico stared into the inverted droplet of candle flame, imaging himself crouching in the black fragment within the column of fire, in the dark element of expelled fumes from the dark candle wax, the space where no oxygen exists, before the superheated vapors escape out of the envelope into air, reuniting with their third sibling in a trinity of oxidizing splendor, exploding in further heat and energy, light and brilliant silence, fire in the vacuum, pushing into the outward void of the world, and then extinguished, lapsing into nothing, their force sapped by the entropic osmosis of the weight of the rest of the universe. Burning brightly, and small, or… something… as some poet had said, but Chico could not remember.
It was time for him to go as well. He reached forward, no more hesitation now, and drew the string downward from where it hung against the wall. Such a simple motion. His own little fire. The blinds slid up, opening the window to Chico’s sight, and the light poured through.

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.

CPSC Notices 6/3-10/10

Maytag Recalls Dishwashers Due to Fire Hazard – An electrical failure in the dishwasher’s heating element can pose a serious fire hazard. Maytag has received 12 reports of dishwasher heating element failures that resulted in fires and dishwasher damage, including one report of extensive kitchen damage from a fire. No injuries have been reported.

GE Recalls Front Load Washers Due to Fire and Shock Hazards – A wire can break in the machine and make contact with a metal part on the washtub while the machine is operating, posing fire and shock hazards to consumers. GE is aware of seven incidents in which flames escaped the units and caused minor smoke damage. No injuries have been reported.

Micro-fiction 6/10/10

They sit, outwardly motionless, oscillating within themselves, the stoic face of contained kinetic energy, the holy halves of power and silence. One for processing clothes, the other for dishware. These gods sanitize. They take that which our bodies have soiled, and they make them whole again. Machinery of redemption, their spark of heaven’s alternating current heats the water, and with it, our bodily sins are wiped away.
But for too long have these gods been ignored. In haste we order them to our purposes, pulling them from the firmament and into our dusty, earthen homes. We deposit our discarded waste into them with mere purpose, the profanity of routine, with the haste of exuberant humans with better things to do that to pay homage to the forces of nature that allow us freedom of the will we claim.
And so it starts with a spark. The smallest copper wire, the capillary beds of powder-coated steel deities, bursting in electric stigmata, insulation opened in the mercy of heaven, and the current finds a ground. Then the smoke, the odoriferous fumes of combustion, the smell of the sacrifice that ought to have been. And still motionless, the gods reach out and touch our homes, passing flame through invisible finger tips, self-immolation their passage back to the sky. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. As the gods’ will, justice is done.

For information about this series, please see the introductory post.