Fresh Air

I love ranting.  I'm actually quite good at it, too.  Hint: if you don't like ranting, you should probably look away now...

But I just HAD to give a bit of a shout-out, WTF air-time to the whole "air freshener" industry.  Seriously??  Pumping chemicals into your home, over your food, your benches, your pets, your skin, your hair, your eyes and everything your child touches, eats and breathes in...how in all the seven levels of hell can that be a good thing??  Have those who happily buy and spray these things around ever looked at what goes into them?  Or do they just blindly trust that the evil mix of noxious chemical perfumes designed to cover up the smell of the carcinogens they're breathing in are actually good for them??

I think the advertisements are what get me the most.  Well no, the stupidity of the product itself takes the largest slice of the sycophantically pink and poisoned cake.  But the ads!  Insipid, vacuous women blithely spraying cans of crap over their benchtops, their pets' bedding, their children's toys...  Do people really do this?  Are people really that paranoid about a little odour?  Is this seriously what these companies would have us believe is a GOOD thing to do??  Is this really what we want for our homes and our children?

You know...the cynic in me worries that the reason for this odiferous explosion is that we as a species have finally become so ashamed at our increasingly sedentary and indoor lifestyles that we've decided to cover (literally, ha!) the stink of our chagrine with some paltry memories of how life outside used to be.  Like a retired athlete watching videos of their glory days, over and over, but never setting foot on the track again.

That funny thing is, if it smells like poo, there's a fairly good chance that it's brown and sticky and has come out of a bum.  (Unless of course it's presented in a can with pictures of flowers on it.  Then it's probably just chemical poo.  Which is apparently okay to spray over everything in your house.)

If things stink - open a window, people!!  Pick some flowers!  Burn some essential oils!  Hell, try cleaning once in a while!  (Not that I advocate cleaning, of course.  Just call me Earth Mother Lazy.)  But for the love of this infinitesimal speck of a precious blue gem upon which we are so blessed to tread, stop filling our air, our homes and our lungs with this unnecessary crap!!!  We have nowhere else to go, people!  This Earth is the only one we have.  Your children are the only ones you have.  Expose them to nature, not to a picture of it on a can of poison.  The last thing they need in their beautiful lives are superbugs which are immune to every antibacterial known to mankind, but which also smell like "crackling fire and cinnamon spice."

Okay.  Rant over.  I could go on, but I don't want someone chasing me down with some hands-free handwash and a spray can of chemical lavendar.  If I wanted to inhale that many chemicals, I'd take up smoking.

Tomorrow, I promise I will return to the glorious, rainbow shores of Colour Month.