Licking The Furniture

Yesterday's post got me thinking a bit more. Not only did I live in the mold capital of the world, I also went to high school in a building that was condemned by the fire marshal. Maybe you think I'm joking, but I am 100% serious. Just weeks before I started my senior year, we were informed that we would no longer be attending high school in a high school building. We had to share time with the elementary school kids - I went to school from 7 AM to 12 NOON, and my baby sister went from 12:30-5 or some crazy thing thing like that. It made a good set-up for an after school job, and I was fortunate enough to be able to work for my aunt who was a bank manager. It was a definite step up over waiting tables or milking cows.

But, here's my point: I spent many days of my life in that high school, which was later deemed to be unfit for human inhabitance. Makes me wonder what was inside the walls, eating away at the structure of the building. And it was definitely built during the asbestos glory days.

Remember these disturbing facts about dust? Think about the dust made from the decaying matter of a century-old building, not to mention walls dripping with teenage hormones, and formaldehyde-soaked frogs. Even more scary is the fact that I sat in an elementary school desk in an elementary school classroom where little kids wipe their boogers and pee their pants. And in my afternoon job, I was surrounded by dirty, filthy money.

I'm beginning to think I will never think about dust the same way again. I think I may become a bona-fide amathopobiac (Amathophobia: An abnormal and persistent fear of dust. Sufferers experience anxiety even though they realize dust poses no threat.) But that would mean that either I would live in terror in my own home OR I would become obsessed with cleaning, and that ain't gonna happen. So, I guess I'll just embrace my surroundings and maybe I'll build up a tolerance to the gunk in which I live.

I think I'll go lick an end table.