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