Adventures of the Mildly Dim

When I first started working here at PHC, I had to go through the customary (and much dreaded) safety orientation session, headed by Bob the Safety Manager. As I left my desk that morning, Marilyn wisely advised me to take a pad of paper and a pen, knowing the delight I take in writing down stories about the ridiculous events in my life. I was not disappointed – I found a stockpile of derisive cannon fodder during those three hours.

I will not bore you with some of the more minor amusements, but the greatest source of hilarity was, without a doubt, the safety video we were forced to watch. Filmed in 1983, this video tape assaulted our senses with synth music rejected from Miami Vice, pixilated visual effects, and an overdose of fluorescent color schemes. The cast was your traditional 1980’s staple of actors -

- Tony Danza-boy – Not quite as handsome, but passable
- Prince-woman – The resemblance is uncanny, with only the breasts creating any telltale difference between the two
- Frito Bandito with a gland problem (or an unhealthy addiction to bacon)
- Boss-man – Typical white man; comes complete with his own power tie!

Although no backstory was provided, I can easily imagine one – the Gambino family, using a chemical storehouse as a front for drug operations, realizes that the FBI has caught on to them, and they need to destroy the place in a hurry. But they need to do it in a legal fashion, so what do they do but hire the above listed individuals (already known for their blatant disregard of OSHA regulations) as workers in the storehouse, hoping that they will destroy the building and themselves in a single day.

As for the video itself, we the viewers were shown a variety of dangerous situations, and repeatedly told how these situations could have been averted if people only would read MSDS books. The actors committed acts of folly that you would think atypical of anyone with an IQ over 5: playing with broken bottles, spilling 50-gallon drums of corrosives, and (my personal favorite) deliberately inhaling poisonous vapors. The vapors scene also wins the award for the goofiest CPR scene ever – the ur-Frito Bandito laying on the floor, Prince-woman doing speed push-ups on his chest, and Boss-man calling paramedics on a cell phone the size of a bread loaf.

After an hour of the characters coming close to killing themselves and demolishing the building with acid, fire, flooding, and runaway forklifts, the movie mercifully ended. I assume that the characters survived, though given their track record, they probably didn’t last long afterwards.