Are You Gonna Eat That?

Finally, some good news...ish.

The first seafood caught off Japan's Fukushima coastline since last year's nuclear disaster went on sale Monday.

Excellent...I suppose. Octopus and whelk, a kind of marine snail, were chosen for the initial shipments because testing for radioactive cesium consistently measured no detectable amounts.

Okay, when they say the stuff went on sale, do they mean it was "on sale" or "for sale"? You know what I mean? While a couple of extra plutonium-inspired legs may render a meatier "nano-pus" or even a "deca-pus," I can see how a loyal customer base may have bid bye-bye to bi-valves, and it may require a little carrot to get that horse trotting again.

Personally, I think I'll wait a couple more decades before dispatching any type of severed tentacle down my pie shoot. Or anything named after a guy who hosted a TV show I was forced to watch while my grandparents babysat me.

It would have helped if I'd been allowed to drink whiskey and water while watching old white people waltz in leisure suits, like my grandfolks did every Saturday night at eight. Enough sweet liquor can make an accordion sound like Jimmy Freaking Page.

"It was crisp when I bit into it, and it tasted so good," said Yasuhiro Yoshida, who overseas the seafood section at a supermarket in coastal Fukushima.

Crisp? Let's hope it was cooked.

Don't get me wrong; I'm very happy for these people who've endured over a year of economic turmoil and personal hardship.

I just think I might stick with cheeseburgers a tad bit longer.

Is it ever a good idea to be the first person "back in the saddle," the first consumer of a good previously deemed too dangerous to indulge in? Should we so readily subject ourselves or our beloved to seemingly benign situations which nonetheless produce tiny yet intense shrieks of subconscious panic?

I'm here to help. Some people enjoy stamp collecting or only buying coffee from people who are almost naked. I get off on saving lives, so here goes:

Probably not a good idea to get the discount laser eye surgery, especially if you have to use some sort of coupon like the kind that come in the mail in booklets. Look, I understand that someone had to drum up business from graduating at the bottom of his class, but I'm not going to let him slice into my iris any more than I'm going to use the coupon on the next page for half-priced nachos on Thursday nights after ten.

If you're at Safeway shopping for condoms and you see some in a bin with DVDs and recess balls, keep walking. They're probably defective. So go ahead and treat yourself to a Dr. Pepper for saying no to the flesh eating bacteria of your next liaison.

If you're looking for some budget-conscious entertainment for your kid's birthday party, be careful. The clown may claim that he passes the savings on to you by utilizing body paint to simulate clothing, but that's when it's a good time to use that convenient safety net of, "Get the hell out of my house, Gacy."

You know those carnivals that come around every once-in-a-while and set up all their stuff in grocery store parking lots? Yeah, stay away from those. The rides are older than Mitt Romney's jeans and the corndogs are made of Crisco and chipmunk ankles.

Lastly, avoid anything by the side of the road bearing a "free" sign. Usually, there's a highly compelling, fully organic reason for that recliner or couch to be exiled to the curbside and you don't want to be saddled with a beanbag chair that looks awesome in your man cave but smells like pea soup and burnt chest hair.

Understand these are merely the paranoid caveats of a wary consumer; results may vary.

But I still wouldn't be eating that seafood quite yet.