76 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
76 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
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DIRTY AIR
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Scientists are now saying that the air inside your home may be more polluted
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than the air outdoors.
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That doesn't surprise me. I've known it for a long time.
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Excuse me--<cough! hack!>
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Most indoor pollution, though derived from the usual sources, reaches harmful
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proportions because of a unique feature in most homes, ceilings. Ceilings keep
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that stuff in, like, for instance, Los Angeles' natural ceiling -- the inversion
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layer -- keeps in smog. If people were smart and lived in houses without
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ceilings, there wouldn't be a lot of ink used up telling about indoor pollution,
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I'll wager.
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Even though ceilings are a convenient excuse (in more ways than one), they
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aren't the entire indoor pollution problem. People do things indoors they don't
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do outdoors.
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For instance, indoors people slave away in the kitchen mostly without any kind
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of range and/or oven venting. Knowing what I know about how most people cook,
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it's fully understandable that some lasting trauma to the human population of a
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house would occur even long after the broccoli was burned black that night that
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Mom and Dad had the hellacious argument.
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People cook indoors because it's convenient, no doubt, although I have been
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observed using my gas grill outdoors in every month of the year.
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Here are some other major causes of indoor pollution:
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* TV sets, especially color TV sets. They're noisy and overbright most of the
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time. They attract another cause of pollution -- children.
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* Children. Kids are a major pollutant in most American homes. Not only are
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they personally noisy, they're also messy eaters, sloppy dressers and sling toys
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all over the place with abandon.
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* Cosmetics. Cosmetics are also a major source of indoor pollution. They're
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so insubstantial, you can create a cosmetic dust storm just by breathing.
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Cosmetics are sold in teeny tiny little containers that drop behind beds,
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dressing tables and vanities.
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* Newspapers and magazines. If you were true to the computer revolution, you
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wouldn't have this problem. Do you see any old copies of The National Satirist
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laying about? Un-uh. How many magazines are you saving because there's exactly
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one thing inside you think you'll need in 1998?
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* Mismatched tablewares and 'keepsakes.' I actually know a family that never
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has this common kind of pollution. If one piece of a set of dinnerware breaks,
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they throw out the whole set and buy a new one. The rest of us end up with a
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flea market inside our kitchen cabinets.
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* Cords. When someone finally figures out how to rid our homes of electric
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power cords, that someone will be immediately elected to the American Inventors
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Hall of Fame. Think of all the electromagnetic radiation that oozes from your
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cords! Yecch!
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* Aerosols. Sure, aerosols are potential pollutants and potentially dangerous
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explosives. That's not what I'm talking about. When I say aerosols are
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pollutants, I mean what's inside of the spray cans. Room deodorant, hair
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fixative, cleansing solution -- droplets of all of this stuff hover around the
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house all the time. Maybe Howard Hughes was right...
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Okay. Now you know about the major sources of indoor pollution. (I didn't
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bother to mention smoking materials -- too obvious.) But what about MINOR
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sources?
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Refrigerator magnets. Kitty litter. Refuse -- I mean garbage. Dust. Pilot
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light fumes. Precipitate matter from that awful city water. Little men in
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toilet bowls. Mildew. Rust Junk mail.
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The list goes on and on. I think I'll join my son in the tent in the back
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yard.
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