Wednesday, 27 June 2018

Evil Detergent



            On Monday morning my elbow was still in pain during poses that put the wound in contact with the floor or my body.
            Ever since I came back from the food bank on Saturday there has been a strange, funky smell in my place. On Sunday I discovered that there was a similar odour coming from the sealed jug of cold-water detergent that I’d been given. The smell in the air was stronger though than what I got from sniffing the jug. It spread though the whole apartment, making other odours smell dirty. I have a bucket of vinegar in which I’ve been soaking a rock containing amethyst crystals and so the odour of the acetic acid is usually prevalent but I couldn’t smell it at all since I’d brought the detergent home. I was beginning to worry that the fumes from the detergent were mixing with those of the acid and tuning into something dangerous. So on Monday morning I took the jug and put it outside on the deck. Within a few minutes the all-permeating pungent odour of the detergent went away. From now on I think I’ll just stick with the lemon scented Sunlight dish detergent that I've been washing my clothes and dishes with for years. My things smell good afterwards and I don’t feel like I’m being poisoned.
            The jug said it’s an irritant but it doesn’t say gas comes clawing out of the sealed bottle. It’s called Xtra and it contains biodegradable ionic and non-ionic surfactants. One review says that it's corrosive and may contain ingredients with potential for cancer and respiratory effects.
            That afternoon I took a bike ride and it was my first long trip since Wednesday evening when I had the fall that caused the elbow injury. I felt the wound rattling whenever I went over a bump. From now on whenever I’m mad at something I’ll say, “That really rattles my elbow!” It was as if a small weasel with no legs was hanging from my elbow by its teeth and couldn’t let go.
            I rode up to Eglinton and Victoria Park. Eglinton Avenue makes me nervous in a lot of places west and east of Yonge because there’s a lot of traffic and it’s not very bike friendly. It looks like there might be a bike lane built for the opening of the LRT in 2021 or 2022. I took Eglinton across to Pharmacy and then headed south. I should have waited at the top of the hill before coasting down into the ravine because the light changed to interrupt my fun.
            That night I watched the last episode of the second season of Dobie Gillis. Dobie and Maynard graduate from army basic training and Dobie’s parents came up for the weekend. The men had a top-secret manoeuvre during that time and Dobie's father decided to give the men extra training WWII style. Maynard fell on his head and temporarily lost his hearing and so Dobie’s father replaced him in the war game not realizing that he would be jumping from a plane.
            I watched what was labelled as the first episode of the third season of Dobie Gillis. Dobie, Maynard and Zelda are suddenly in college, with no explanation about how Dobie and Maynard got out of the army. It turns out to have been the second episode. In the original Max Shulman Dobie Gillis stories Dobie was a college student from the start and there was no Maynard G Krebs. In this story Zelda continues to put a spanner in the works of any relationship with any other girls that he tries to start. It’s usually enough for Zelda to show the girl Dobie’s grades and a picture of his father, but one girl, Maryanne, who personally sees nothing attractive about Dobie, wants him because Zelda does. She concludes that if the smartest girl in college sees something in Dobie then he must be a catch. Zelda begins wearing black like someone in mourning and sits across from Dobie and Maryanne wherever they go while sobbing with a big bottle marked “poison” beside her. Even though Maryanne knows it’s a ruse, she finally gives up and so does Dobie.
           

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