Remember the fun with plastic bags we were having earlier this week? Turns out they really are quite bad for the environment.

Please please please do not use them as water balloons!!!

I purchased some provisions at my neighborhood Target the other day, and something stuck in my mind. There is generally no “paper or plastic” option at Target, so I went with plastic. I noticed the following ambiguously helpful list on the side of the bag:

10 WAYS TO REUSE YOUR TARGET BAG

1. Tiny Trashcan Liner

2. Doggy Duty

3. Water Balloon

4. Roadtrip Rubbish

5. Soggy Laundry

6. Ice Pack for Head Lump

7. Toiletry Tote

8. Kitty Litter Liner

9. Tomorrow’s Lunchbag

10. Care Package Padding

Some of these are very good suggestions, while some are a bit odd.

1. Tiny Trashcan Liner – True, it beats buying brand new trashbags. I use shopping bags for my bathroom trash can, so I have the peace of mind that my dirty Kleenex will be safe in a polyethylene cocoon for a long, long time.

2. Doggy Duty – What’s up with the alliteration? Still, I can think of no better place to dispose of my dog’s disgusting daily dookie.

3. Water Balloon – WTF? First off, how? Second, why? Third, how does this help anything???

4. Roadtrip Rubbish – Nice alliteration. See #1 above.

5. Soggy Laundry – Is this to lock in the moisture, or to create a strain of super-intelligent mildew?

6. Ice Pack for Head Lump – Actually, this is a good idea, unless you turn around and use the melted ice as a water ballon.

7. Toiletry Tote – Huh?

8. Kitty Litter Liner – I have a better idea: put some litter in the bag, then put the cat in. Leave a hole when you tie the bag off, so the cat can breathe, then you have the problems of cat waste and shedding all contained in a single bag!

9. Tomorrow’s Lunchbag – I shouldn’t have to note that you should not use this option if you have already used the bag for item #8.

10. Care Package Padding – Uh, have you ever actually held one of these bags? They’re not exactly generous in the mass department. You would need a hell of a lot of them to pad anything at all valuable and/or breakable. Having that many of them would somewhat obviate the benefit of re-using them. Besides, then you’d be depriving your recipient the joy of perusing your local newspaper or playing with your bubble wrap, and that would be cruel.

In conclusion, readers, do your part to save the environment by finding the most alliterate use for your old plastic shopping bags. Happy hunting.

This is actually quite tragic, sad, and recent. Tragic that people were hurt. Tragic that people died. Tragic that natural gas is so dangerous. Tragic that this may have been avoidable, very, very avoidable. While my initial instinct is to do more light mockery, I’ll just quote the story and let the public decide:

CLEBURNE — A man whose wife died after their home exploded had been told not to light any more cigarettes nearly an hour before the blast, according to a city fire marshal’s report.

After calling the Cleburne Fire Department’s nonemergency number on May 29, David Pawlick told the fire inspector that “every time my wife lights a cigarette, a blue flame shoots up to the ceiling.” Fire inspector Scott Oesch said he would check the problem and told Pawlick not to light any more matches, according to a memo written by Oesch two days later.

Oesch did not tell the family to leave the home — where authorities later discovered natural gas had seeped in but went undetected.

Before the inspector arrived, Pawlick’s wife, Hazel, said she wanted to smoke. So Pawlick lit a match for his wife’s cigarette, but it went out after a blue flash. He lit another match, sparking an explosion of blue flames in the house, Fire Marshal Bill Wright reported.

Seconds later, flames went through the ceiling into the attic. Another more violent explosion then ripped a hole in the roof.

Five of the family members were injured. Hazel Pawlick, 64, died days later from her injuries.

Hazel Sanderson, the Pawlick’s daughter, and her daughter, Stephanie Sanderson, remain in critical condition at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, the family’s attorney said.

Pawlick is suing Atmos Energy and seeking unspecified damages. Family attorney Dean Jackson declined to comment on the inspector’s claim about Pawlick being told not to light any more cigarettes.

The Pawlicks’ house did not use natural gas. But fire investigators say a nearby natural gas leak traveled into a sewer line leading into the house.

A condensation line from an air-conditioning unit dropped into the sewer pipe. The result was aunit that worked as a pump, sucking natural gas from the sewer line and distributing it through the air-conditioning ducts, Wright wrote.