this christmas, i've been marveling over the various methods of packaging, realizing that the whole objective of packaging is to keep one from getting whatever is inside. it's sadistic, but true. but eveyone's seen those little quanta of tiny pellets that come in your shoes and your pill bottles. "silica gel, do not eat," it says. i always figured it was poisonous or harmful. i remember at school one day i found a packet in my coat and opened it up. andrew ate two pellets, and jarrod ate one because it tasted nasty i guess. and our science teacher said they would pop in water, so we tried it. it wasn't very impressive. well, my dog ate a small package of them last night, so i searched the web to see if they were poisonous. turns out they're harmless, although some animals have had vomiting and lack of appetite. but daisy's fine. i did, however find an interesting blog discussion about the mysterious pellets. turns out some people eat them as nutritional suppliments. but the little packets can absorb bad things, so stick to cheeze-its for afternoon snacks.