I’ve been reading the label on a case of Clorox® for the past week or so, since it’s sitting on a table in the garage (and by “table” I of course mean “cube freezer,” which like most things with a flat surface in our house has been transformed into a table – but I digress). Mostly I’ve been looking at the part that says, “Kills 99.9% of Common Household Germs.” Some might find this comforting, but all I can think about is the fact that there are apparently germs (defined on the Clorox® website as bacteria and viruses) that are in my house, common, and cannot be killed by a 6.0 percent aqueous solution of sodium hypochlorite. I really don’t wanna run into the virus that can’t be killed by bleach in a dark alley (or my bathroom) some night. <\/p>\n
Fortunately, I came of age in an era when the failure to sanitize your house to cleanroom levels and\/or rush to the doctor for a course of antibiotics at the hint of a sniffle wasn’t considered child abuse (also, driving drunk was frowned upon, as opposed to actually being illegal). So I think I’ve developed a resistance to those bleach-immune bugs running around out there. Or course, I also grew up a time when eating right and exercising weren’t particularly emphasized, either. <\/p>\n
So, like my father, my father’s father, and his<\/i><\/b> father before him (not to mention my mother’s father), I’ll most likely die at a relatively young age (though I’ll probably feel a lot older than I actually am, so I guess that evens things out. My last thoughts will either be “I really should’ve taken better care of myself,” or “I never shoulda quit drinking beer” – my money’s on the latter). <\/p>\n
Anyhow, to all my male progenitors who passed on their genes and then promptly stepped aside for the next generation, I say “Happy Father’s Day.” <\/p>\n
Speaking of sodium hypochlorite, I’m fairly certain I did permanent damage to my lungs yesterday. There’s a big old bucket of 3″ chlorine tablets that’s been sitting out on the pool deck since last year. When I opened it up this season, I noted that there was was quite a bit of water in the bucket – with, as you might expect, a very strong aroma of chlorine. But many of the tablets in there (individually wrapped, if not exactly hermetically sealed) were still viable, so I was able to avert my nose and fish a few out every now again to add to the chlorine floaty dispenser thing.<\/p>\n
The weather around here has been pretty crappy – rainy and not consistently warm – so I’ve had the solar cover on and before Friday, nobody had actually gone swimming (I try to to think about the waste of money). A few sunny days warmed the water up a bit, though, and on Thursday, out of the blue, they came and filled up the propane tanks for the heater (at roughly triple the cost of Natural Gas – one of these days I’ve gotta convert that over).<\/p>\n
So, anyhow, I went to grab some more tabs and the bucket was filled with this yellowish water and when I pulled the lid off, the chlorine vapor damn near knocked me over. After about three tries, I realized I wasn’t getting any more chlorine out of that sucker and I gave up. Since then, I’m wheezing, my chest hurts, and I can’t take a more than about half a breath without coughing. So if you don’t hear from me for a while, it probably means I’ve succumbed (or am just too lazy to write).<\/p>\n
In the event that I don’t die in the next 2-4 hours, I’m stuck waiting for people at work to complete some project or other. I’m not actually involved in it, other than they wanted to make sure there was a DBA around in case they had problems with the database. Since I’m the “on-call” person (in quotes, because without the quotes, they’d have to pay me something for being on the hook 24\/7 all week – and what a pain in the ass week it’s been), I have to sit and wait for them to finish and fuck everything up (which they will), then wash their hands of it and pass it along to me to un-fuck it (which would be a lot easier – and less stressful – if I actually knew what I was doing).<\/p>\n
So, no Father’s Day party for me today (I’m guessing the dogs didn’t actually have anything planned anyway). No golf, no trip to the ball park, no picnic, no barbecue, and – worst of all – no beer.<\/p>\n
Hey, but don’t let that stop all of you<\/b><\/i> from having a good time. <\/p>\n