Maybe Chicken Little was right

If you grow up in Southern California, you know about air pollution. The region has been over populated for roughly 60 years now, so too many cars put too much bad stuff in the air. Industry really isn’t an issue any more. Not too many industries left in California, due to the tax structure the state has.

Now, when a native Californian relocates to the Midwest, there is every reason to believe the bad air is a thing of the past. There is no car pollution in the Midwest. Even the regions where heavy industry formerly created problems are now much more healthy places to breathe.

So imagine my consternation this week when I discovered the horrible pollution issue where I live. ‘How can this possibly be,’ I wondered to myself. The internet said the air quality is good here and they can’t put anything inaccurate on the internet.

A good walk ruined by this terrible, new pollution.

I was walking our dog on a cold, cloudy day when the skies apparently became so filled with pollution that this white stuff began falling to the earth. Incredible. And it spread like crazy. Pretty soon, this white pollution covered every lawn, street, house and car within view. This stuff is so dangerous; it makes a quiet crunching sound when you walk on it.

Air so bad that it makes you cough, sure. I get that. But air so bad it falls to the ground and crunches when you walk on it? I never thought I’d see the day.

So I asked my wife about it. She taught second grade for many years and is a repository for all knowledge useful in life. Her answer was not at all helpful. She told me, “You’ll get used to it.”

That didn’t help much.

The next day I drove across three states and back in order to accomplish some important business and saw still more of this white stuff. I saw cars covered with what seemed to be a thin layer of the same insidious pollution. Parts of the ground where the morning shadows had not yet receded were similarly hidden. I asked someone in the store where I was shopping if any white stuff had fallen from the sky recently and she answered in the negative.

“But the cars are covered with it,” I protested. She said it had been very cold the night before.

In California, the summer air is normally more polluted than the non-summer air (Southern California does not really have winter months) and it appears that the Midwest has just the reverse. We did not see this white pollution until after the summer months were gone.

All I can figure out is that something in the summer climate stops this white pollution from forming. But then there is some kind of change in the atmosphere during the fall and the molecules that create this stuff are then able to come together and form something really bad.

I postulate that these hybrid molecules, whatever they are, cause the air temperature to drop. They continue to get larger and heavier until they simply crash to the planet surface, bringing misery to all in their path.

Let’s get back to the woman I met in the store. Remember, she explained the white stuff on the cars and the ground appeared after a cold night. I can only guess her comment means that this white pollution can somehow generate itself here on the earth’s surface, given the needed circumstances.

Yikes, that’s a scary thought. I mean, what if you have to walk on it sometime?

“That’s why I bought boots for the winter,” my wife explained.

I asked why the government has done nothing about solving this problem and my patient wife said the government does what it always does when things go wrong: It sends out trucks with shovels so it can push the stuff to the side and wait for someone else to solve the issue. I asked, logically, “What about driving on this stuff?”

 

She said the government salts the roads.

“I don’t want to eat the stuff,” I whined to my wife. “Besides, too much salt is bad for your heart.”

For no reason at all, she picked up a magazine and threw it at me.

All I can figure out about this terrible pollution is the following:

It either brings winter on or is brought on by winter.
It can form itself at ground level or in the sky.
It is crunchy.
It tastes better with salt.
It causes such an uproar that perfectly nice people end up throwing things at each other when it appears.
It may be caused by communists or some other political force because the government has decided silently to do nothing about it except shovel it onto the lawn (instead of under the rug).
 
           Maybe you know more about all this than I do. I hope so. But whatever it is, I’m done asking about it. My wife might find another magazine to throw and I might not be able to duck quickly enough next time.

Thanks for reading.