May contain Nuts

Up at the cottage last week we were drowning worms at a furious pace in a futile attempt to entice the exceedingly rare Doe Lake walleye to latch on to a hook and hence score a position of honour at the dinner table. By midweek we were out of worms, having gone through them at a rate of about 2 dozen worms per fish caught, so it was off to town to replenish the bait supply.

The nearest town with any kind of shopping is Novar. The shopping area comprises a liquor store, an Arctic Cat snowmobile dealership appropriately named Arnie’s Cat House, a Foodland grocery store, and precious little else. The grocery store sells worms. But these aren’t just any old dew worms plucked from the greens at the local golf course before the sun rises. No, these worms “May contain Nuts”.

Think about that for a minute. The mind boggles when trying to figure out the intent of this warning.

First of all, worms don’t have nuts, so the possibility of male worms being in the package is not the reason.

Perhaps the local population has taken to supplementing their daily diet with a side plate of deep fried worms in a crispy corn meal batter. Fish stocks are down and the tourism industry is no hell this year but is it really that bad? Besides, at $3.94 a dozen a Big Mac is a better deal.

Maybe it’s about the fish. Should we be concerned about a possibly nut-allergic fish going into anaphylactic shock before we kill it? How would a fish become sensitized to nuts in the first place?

And just where would an earthworm come into contact with nuts? Does Foodland package them on the same table they use to package snack foods and other grocery items?

Or is it just some anally retentive product liability lawyer in a 3-piece suit in Toronto who wouldn’t know a fishing worm if he swallowed one (with or without a very large hook) who has dictated that every product the store sells be so labelled, no matter how stupid?

My money is on the lawyer.