A nation of lawyers has turned us into a nation of liars. Instead of being honest and keeping dangerous products off the market, corporations just change the way they market them.

Take Q-Tips, for instance. Go to any gym in the world and you'll see how dudes use them. Propped in front of the mirror with towels wrapped around their waists there'll be five guys with Q-Tips buried two inches deep in their ears, hacking away at the water and the wax.

But, you know, Q-Tips aren't intended for this purpose. There's even a printed notice on the side of the box. "WARNING: Do not insert swab into ear canal. Entering the ear canal could cause injury. If used to clean ears, stroke swab gently around the outer surface of the ear only."

So, should something unfortunate happen to these Q-Tippers -- they puncture an eardrum, or push the earwax further in rather than pull it out -- you know what Q-Tip's lawyers will say. "They put them in their EARS? Ohmigod! They're not supposed to go in people's ears, and frankly we're horrified to hear people are doing that!"

Then, there's a bizarre little product called Locker Room. It's marketed as a deodorizer for locker rooms, and in fact it has an intense odor that could easily overpower any kind of musty smell. Unlike Glade or Airwick, though, Locker Room is only available at gay bookstores, like all us homosexuals also manage football teams part time. Like George Steinbrenner and Mark Cuban drop by on a regular basis and pick up a bottle along with the latest copy of Straight to Hell and a tube of strawberry-kiwi Lube.

No, the reality is, Locker Room is a sex drug. You stick it under your nose while you're screwing and it makes your heart beat like a hummingbird's. Which is exciting for everybody who doesn't know hummingbirds only live twenty-four hours.

The sad thing is, these legal dodges work like a charm. Nobody's suing Q-Tip. Nobody's suing Locker Room. Because they've got us over a barrel. They know if we hurt ourselves with their products we're not going to call their bluff. No freedom-fighting Erin Brockovich is going to battle to the death for a dude who sticks Q-Tips in his ears. No altruistic Jimmy Stewart character is going to take his case all the way to the Supreme Court, telling the world he snorted room deodorizer while a Latino sucked him off.

Still, I am confident that justice will eventually prevail, and that one day some dude will find the courage to take up this fight. Whoever he is, I'd like to reassure him that there are millions of Americans on his side. When the time comes for his day in court, we'll fill the audience with his supporters. We'll boo his setbacks and cheer his triumphs. Indeed, we'll sit there proudly knowing that though it's just one man fighting, it's the American way of life he's fighting for when he bravely stands up to questions like, "Tell the court why you thought it'd be okay to stick a facial massager up your ass."