Janie BoschmaDear Ask Anything,
Can eating Pop Rocks and drinking soda actually kill you? Where did that story come from?
-Tempting fate
Dear Tempting Fate,
As Halloween approaches, someone must have been catching up with the latest super-special scare edition of the 1998 film horror classic “Urban Legends” to come up with such a question.
The popular myth that pop rocks, if taken with soda, causes one’s stomach to explode is a myth that I didn’t even have to watch a Sunday marathon of “MythBusters” on the Discovery Channel in order to dispel.
The rumor began in 1975 from the day of the product’s introduction to the public. General Foods, the inventor of Pop Rocks, even had the Food and Drug Administration set up a phone line so people could call them and they could confirm that kids could not die from eating the candy with soda.
The big breakthrough of the myth comes from Seattle, known for its rain, Starbucks and depression epidemic. Some depressed kid on a caffeine high who couldn’t get outside because of rain told his brother that the star of Life cereal commercials, Mikey, died eating Pop Rocks with soda while on the set of a Life commercial.
The listener of this rubbish proceeded to tell a friend of a friend and the myth got spread over the nation, despite the fact that Mikey is still alive and well and working for an ad agency.
When my roommate left for home this weekend, I kept this uncovered story in mind as I sat in an empty dorm room with six packs of Pop Rocks and a two-liter of Diet Coke. I chose Diet Coke both for the Coke Rewards and to save calories, but that isn’t really relevant.
What is relevant is that in the middle of watching “Gladiator” on TNT, I dumped the six packs of pop rocks in my mouth, and then poured the two-liter of Diet Coke into my mouth and swallowed. From there I went on to watch Maximus Decimus Meridius get his vengeance in this life or the next, redeem my Coke Rewards for a plush polar bear and live to write this response, thus debunking the myth.
Dear Ask Anything,
How safe is a tongue piercing?
-Contemplating
Dear Contemplating,
They’re stupid and unattractive. Oh, I’m sorry, you weren’t asking what I thought of them or how they looked were you?
Other than the smackdown that your mother will give you once she finds out that you got this essentially pointless procedure done, there really is nothing unsafe about getting your tongue pierced.
The only thing that would make it unsafe is if you don’t go to a professional to get it done. But if you’re dumb enough to get it done in the first place, I’m sure you aren’t dumb enough to miss that word of advice.
The worst that could happen – again, if done by a professional and done correctly – is the person doing the piercing could hit a vein and blood would gush everywhere and then the risk of choking on one’s blood would be higher. However, the tongue is an amazingly resilient, muscle and skin-like thing that can heal itself within days, so even a poorly done job can be corrected with time.
Tooth and gum damage are risks, but they can be minimized by proper placement, the use of properly sized jewelry and avoiding playing with the piercing, which you probably won’t be able to do because you are going to college.
A bar that is very large or too long can greatly increase the risk of chipped teeth or gum erosion, and excessive impacts of the metal against the teeth can cause micro-fractures in the tooth enamel.
Oh, and did I mention that it looks stupid and is unattractive?
