Business Practice

[xoxoxoBruce]

I bought a small piece of Dry Ice(cardice to the Brits) last week. It was $20.40, plus $1.02 Hazardous Materials Charge, and $1.34 tax.
I was curious about this Hazardous Materials Charge. Looking at their standard 8.5 by 11 form, the entire back side is covered with rules for rented cylinders, rental terms, security interests, rental returns and invoices in very small, very light gray type. Down at the bottom is the following paragraph, which I photoshopped the hell out of so you could read it, as the original is 6.75 by 1 inches and very hard to see;

Basically it says, we impose it and we keep it, to cover any/all insults to our view of the would, by any and all governing bodies.

It's not big enough to attract attention on small purchases, but on larger orders to companies the 5% plus the sales tax on it, might cause some eager beaver accountant to raise a flag. Maybe commercial/industrial accounts aren't nailed with the charge. Probably small businesses would just curse the bottom line creeping up every year. Most people may assume it's a real government charge and it's Obama's fault.

[DanaC]

Umm...I've never heard of cardice - but dry ice I know of...

[Undertoad]

car dice

[xoxoxoBruce]

Cardice. Whoops, my bad, I failed to notice it's Brit chemists.
Is that like work for DuPont chemists, or what we call druggists at the drugstore?

[DanaC]

Not sure: could mean pharmacists, but most likely means people working in chemicals industries.

We do use the word 'chemist' (dispensing chemist to give full name) to mean pharmacy - but we usually refer to the people who work at a chemists as pharmacists.

[Cyclefrance]

In the days before refrigerators, dry ice was the lifeblood of the food industry. People would get very emotional when it ran out - often moved to tears - no dry ice to be seen anywhere!

Then there's the story of the guy who after an extremely cold night emerged from under his duvet to find this small block of opaque ice on the floor beside his bed. Wondering were it came from and if it contained anything he turned on the heating and placed it on top of his bedroom radiator to thaw. He then went downstairs to have a hot drink. Ten minutes later he heard this enormously loud fart from behind his bedroom door.

I told you we had a weird sense of humour.

[xoxoxoBruce]

ba-dum-ch