Does this phrase turn your stomach too? I thought so. Does it make you want to go out drunk driving? Maybe beat a few old ladies with sticks for laughs? Me too. And how exactly does one choose to have a SAFE holiday? OK, no hairdryers in the bathtub, I knew that much. No feeding lighted sparklers into the woodchipper. Drink with one hand at a time, please. No greasing the "Twister" sheet. And always, always, wear your continence pants.

But that chilling phrase, HAVE A SAFE HOLIDAY, makes me think of some Norman Rockwellian family sitting grimly around the holiday table in their germ suits gazing at a meal devoid of beef (mad cow disease), potatoes (lethal carbs), carrots (beta-carotene poisoning), fish (mercury! tapeworms!), tapwater (gaaaaah!), and Liquid Smoke (don't ask).

I think HAVE A SAFE HOLIDAY is as lethal to safety as those warning labels are on cigarettes and booze. They make me want to go all Braveheart on whoever thought I was dumb enough to think they were health food.