I was at a thrift store yesterday looking through the books while my wife shopped for clothes. Needless to say I was there awhile. My son (8) was playing with an old maze toy. It was a disk about 10" wide and a quarter of an inch thick. the cover was cracked but you could still see the maze. While keeping an eye on him I could see that there were several balls rolling around in it.

I quessed you had to get them all into the center. Finally he got the largest one in the center and asked if I wanted to try. I took the toy and slanted it to get the balls to roll to the bottom. They did, and then formed one big ball of Mercury!

I remember having one of those as a kid, but I thought they had all been gotten rid of since then. I went up to pay for it 79 cents, and my wife asked me why I was buying it. I told her that Mercury was toxic and that one of its compounds can be used to trigger explosives. "So?" said she. I said that if I didn't buy it someone who didn't know what it was would buy it for their toddler, the kid would break the already cracked cover and play with and/or eat the toxic substance.

Between that and pointing out to an employee at a major fashion clothing store that there was a receptacle 2 feet off the floor with no cover and no tape on the device should give enough karma for the rest of the year. The guy didn't seem to care until I pointed out that little kids could easily put their hand in there and they would pay thousands instead of the half dollar for a cover from Wal-Mart.

Does anyone else have an obsessive-compulsive need to point out safety issues to store or home owners? Does having children make you notice them more?

Robert