
I recently bought Guitar Hero 3 for the 3rd time (the first two had defective guitars...this one seems fine so far). But in addition to a sweet plastic guitar, the box comes with several of these little packets of silica gel, with the stern command on them to throw them away, and not eat them.
I figure that any object that's clearly not food, yet has a warning to not eat it on every package, must have a juicy story behind it. Some kid who ate a whole package and ended up with a burst stomach or something.
But thanks to Google, I now know that the truth is far more dry. The packets are meant to remove moister, so they might make you slightly dehydrated if you eat a few. They are also coated in a substance that could give you cancer if you eat them on a regular basis. Other than that, they're harmless. This guy even created an entire website devoted to his story of when he was really bored and decided to eat one. He turned out extremely lonely and in need of some outside stimulation, but that had nothing to do with eating the silica gel. *
What a disappointment. No burst stomachs, no weird rashes, no murder-by-silica-gel (#42). Just a resounding "it's not a good idea to eat it, but it won't kill you." Oh well, at least you learned something.

* Maybe he should become friends with this guy, who has a full fan site devoted to silica gel (and judging by the site, is a time traveler from 1995).