I rented a small boat in Greece and the guy in the harbor showed me a map of the islands I could go to and there was a red line marking how far you were allowed to go. The guy put his hand on my shoulder and very seriously explained that the red like was not visible on the surface of the sea it was just for reference on the map. And told me about this British couple who got on the boat and drove straight on until the fuel ran out. They were lucky they still had phone signal and they called for the guy to come get them. When asked why they did that they said they couldn't see the red line so they thought it was ok...

Every warning up there is in place because someone tried to do exactly what the warning tells you not to.

Seeing this post made me physically cringe. I am "The Public."

In my late 20s, my ear started hurting. I was utterly convinced it was just a stubborn clump of earwax. I went to the pharmacy and bought one of those bulb syringes for rinsing ears. The pharmacist calmly and explicitly instructed me: "Make sure you only use lukewarm water." I went home, washed my ear canal, and nothing happened. I figured I'd just give it a few days to loosen up.

Over the next couple of days, the pain escalated to an excruciating level. I'm talking find-chair, put-my-head-in-my-lap kinda pain. And as my son had just been born, I was operating on a good mix of extreme pain and severe sleep deprivation.

Eventually, i came to the conclusion that hotter water = more wax melting, and if lukewarm water didn't work, maybe it just needs more heat. The hotter the water, the better chance it has of melting the wax, right? So, I boiled some water. And with zero hesitation, I injected boiling hot water directly into my ear canal.

It was not earwax.

I ended up at the doctor, where I learned that the initial agony was actually a severe case of otitis media (a middle ear infection). And thanks to my brilliant home remedy, I had managed to add a scorched ear canal and a secondary outer ear infection right on top of it.

So yeah. When that optometrist said, "Look at me. I want you to understand that I mean water that has been boiled and has since cooled down," he was talking to me. I am the guy.

I am a dentist and any oddly specific instructions I give are usually because some turd has tried it before:

“Prepare your nightguard by running it under warm water. This means a few seconds under the warm water from your tap - do not boil your nightguard in a pot for half an hour, it will be destroyed”

“Do not place a tiny crab fork in your extraction site to remove food debris”

“If you require an adjustment, please return. Your garage power tools are not safe to use on your teeth”

Story time.

My wife is an optometrist.

One day a patient called the office because he had foreign body in his eye. No big deal. They had equipment for removing a foreign body from the eye safely. The patient asked how much the exam was. They told him (I think it was around $70) and he said he'd think about it.

He called up a little while later and said he got it out. He asked if he still needed to come in, and they explained that he still should have his eye checked to make sure it wasn't injured.

When he got there, my wife asked him how he got it out.

He said he used the edge of a razor blade to pick it out of his eye. He said he does it all the time.

If the thought of putting the edge of a razor blade against your eye is not horrifying enough, remember that when you're working on your own eye, you don't have depth perception.

Must be in the US

I used to work in a college computer lab. One night, a girl waved me over and said "the foot pedal isn't working." I said "foot pedal?"

Sure enough, she had the mouse on the floor, and was trying to work it with her bare foot.

When coming across an unfamiliar problem, does anyone else feel themselves be possessed by the "problem solver"? It's like the rational part of your brain doesn't think it needs to be there so it delegates to your lizard brain and your lizard brain decides to "solve" the problem itself.

It's so jarring how much can "seem like a good idea at the time".

There’s a reason that there is a warning on the Preparation H tube that says “Do not take orally”

I've come to realize that most of us are just smart enough to fuck things up.

I figure in the last four billion years or so all water has been previously boiled...

But boiling water that cooled down to 80°C is also boiled water and has since cooled down, still hurts. So yeah be a bit more specific doc.

Why not just advice people to rinse with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide? It's harder to misunderstand.