Comments on: The Quick 10: 10 Flowers You Don’t Want to Put in Your May Day Basket

By: Jessi

Jessi — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:45:00 +0000

I was actually given a prescription for belladonna for some stomach issues I had. Obviously, it wasn’t as potent as the stuff that will kill you, but I remember thinking it was very odd. I had read about belladonna as a poison before. It actually worked really well, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it unless it’s prescribed to you. Like I said, this was a prescription pill. It wasn’t just a plant I ate or made a tea from.

By: VM

VM — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:31:00 +0000

“A is for Alibi”, the first in Sue Grafton’s series of mysteries, also featured an oleander poisoning. And (much) more recently the last “Sit Down, Shut Up” episode had an opening segment where the flower-childy teacher Miracle joyfully distributed spring flowers that turned out to be hemlock…

Slightly surprised that lily of the valley, that archtypical spring flower — indeed sometimes called May Lily or May Bells, and (as Wiki tells us) traditionally sold on the street in France on May 1st — didn’t make this list, as all of it is highly poisonous. But when one stops to consider all the pretty garden plants that are poisonous it make one shudder to walk through a nursery!

By: Becky

Becky — Sun, 03 May 2009 19:41:00 +0000

When I was a very very small child, my mother once found me sitting next to a ripped-open stuffed animal, eating the little plastic pellets from inside it. Luckily I didn’t eat enough to get sick.

The WORST eating experienc eof my life was with my first Krispy Kreme doughnut. It was a crazy chocolate thing we got at the drive-through window and I was super excited about it. I took the first bite, pulled the rest of the doughnut away from my mouth, and a cockroach jumped out right onto the floor of my dad’s car. I screamed and freaked out, it was horrifying.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:07:00 +0000

Oleanders require little water, will grow in most soil and weather conditions, propagate easily, provide excellent erosion control in desert areas, are efficient wind breaks and privacy hedges and grow very rapidly.

They are EXTREMELY poisonous because they thrive on carbon monoxide. You will see them growing happily alongside southern California’s nastiest freeways, adorned in delicate pink or white blossoms, doing their best to gobble up toxic emissions.

*on a side note: while sitting around a campfire with several friends, I did have a big ol’ June bug land in my icy cold beer. The invader went unnoticed for a minute or two, stifled by cold Dos Equis or the near-drowning experience.

Absentmindedly, I reached for the beer and took a swig … … at which time the inebriated June bug vaulted to freedom.

Witnesses still recall the incident, and my manic dance around the campfire, with unabashed glee. The Park Rangers? Not so much.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sun, 03 May 2009 03:38:00 +0000

The worst thing I ever ate- when my son was about 18 months old we were eating take out chinese. He help up his hand with what I thought was gravy on his fingers. I told him to lick his fingers, he just looked at me like I was crazy. I said “It’s good, see?”, got some on my finger and put it in my mouth. To realize that it wasn’t food, he was trying to tell me he had pooped and over flowed his diaper.
My husband wouldn’t kiss me for 2 days after that.

By: Alli

Alli — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:15:00 +0000

Oh yuck. Many moons ago I was kitchen staff at a sleepoer camp. Once a week we made Pop Tarts for the kids; whatever they didn’t eat we threw on a plate for us to snack on later.

One afternoon after a Pop Tart breakkie, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a Pop Tart and stuffed it into my mouth. And it tickled. That’s when I actually looked at what I was eating; the ants had found and were swarming the Pop Tarts. Which meant I had a mouth full. Urgh.

You know, I totally forgot about that. Till I read this article.

By: NT4thBook

NT4thBook — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:15:00 +0000

Try curdled goat milk in an old coffee can! I was in the the mountains of Colombia and was offered a drink by my host. Fresh, warm goat milk in a rusty can with curd rings on the inside from the previous level. MMM…good!

By: Anastasia

Anastasia — Sat, 02 May 2009 06:26:00 +0000

Sounds like everyone has had those moments..

I can remember a few good ones, actually.

Once, when I was 12, I was babysitting and got the kids and myself some glasses of chocolate milk. I sat down at the kitchen table to drink mine and looking into the glass as I was drinking I saw what I thought was a lump of chocolate powder. I stopped just in time to realize it was actually a cricket that had jumped in the glass!

When I was about three years old, my “best” friend (the things we let people talk us into) dared me to eat the anthill in my front yard, claiming I didn’t have the guts to touch the ants. I scooped up a handful of ant mound, ants and all, and ate the whole thing. Tasted like dirt, and it didn’t seem to hurt me. Good thing they weren’t fire ants! My mom has always mourned my lack of ability to avoid peer pressure :)

My last one is not quite as good, but still funny.
@Bryan: My current best friend has studied a lot of herbal medicine and made me a number of home remedies at one point, that I was storing in the pantry. My husband came home with a really bad cough from grad school one day, and I decided to help him out. I handed him a medicine dose cup with a teaspoon of Sundew extract in it (in an ethanol matrix). He thought it was cough syrup and swigged it down — only to find out that the alcohol was in the cup! Surprised the H*** out of him, but it definitely cleared up his cough 5 minutes later!

reCaptcha: potable source

By: Tricia

Tricia — Sat, 02 May 2009 04:24:00 +0000

My husband and I prefer different types of tea, his sweet and mine not, so when we make iced tea it’s usually not sweet. To make up for this, my husband makes a simple syrup, put it in a water bottle and adds it to his tea whenever he wants it. I didn’t know this had been made one day and chugged what I thought was water. I got a mouth full of sugary substance that was so sweet I gagged for a good minute. Who puts a watery looking substance in a water bottle and doesn’t label?

By: Kieran

Kieran — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:21:00 +0000

My mom has SO MANY houseplants! She always warned me about the philodendrons around the house, so I never messed with them. We had a puppy, however, that apparently knew the properties of the plant. When he was teething, he chewed just enough of the philodendron to numb his mouth, but not enough to close his throat or kill him. Smart dog, that.