path: root/mold.txt

I write things like this all the time. Mostly I delete them, but then I thought, you know, it's been a while since there was a good rant on luxagraf. So I published this one. If you're hear for the travel stories, skip this one.

A while back I sold the Yellowstone trailer we bought. We decided to go with a motorhome instead and got the Travco. I dislike Craigslist so I started trying to sell the Yellowstone by posting it to Facebook so friends and friends of friends could have a look. 

A very nice woman got in touch, she was interested. She had even tried to buy the thing from the guy I bought it off. She was ready to hand me cash. But she wanted to looks at one more time. I said sure.

She brought along a friend to check it out too. He was hipstered out in plaid shorts and some kind of ironic hat, but hey, to each their own I guess. That's not what got me.

What got me was that he was so afraid of mold he wouldn't even get in the trailer to check out the details. Bear in mind that this is a trailer from 1969 that had, until I bought it, been rotting in the woods of south georgia, used as a place to sleep on hunting trips (incidentally, it was decked out in frilly stain pillows when I bought it, which makes me wonder about the nature of these hunting trips).

The woman was ready to commit, to buy something and restore it with her bare hands. She had already told me her big plans for it. But her friend, whose hands I couldn't help noticing, were pearly white with so much as a scratch or dirty fingernail, was afraid of mold. 

I almost spoke up when I overheard him call the trailer a biohazard. 

I felt like screaming, "it's fucking mold, man, like the black stuff that grows on anything wet."

I'd hate to hear what he'd make of India, Indonesia or even Florida for that matter, half the things in those places are covered in black mold. Mold is something that happens when it's warm and wet. It won't kill you and it certainly isn't a biohazard. There are real biohazards out there, like the cell phone that's in most of our pockets.

I'm not saying mold is good. Or that you shouldn't use precautions like a respirator if you're sensitive to it and in a closed space with it. But christ, it's not a biohazard. Mold might give you a headache, in some rare cases long term exposure is bad for some people, but it's not going to kill you.

For my favorite part of the story we have to go back to the moment he stepped out of the car... smoking a cigarette. 

Why I am telling this story? To make fun of some hipster who caused his friend to miss out on a great deal on a cool project? No, not really. Okay, maybe a little, but the things that's been bothering me for a while is that the world I inhabit -- in other words this is all my own fault -- has become increasingly paranoid about what feels like all the wrong things. Mold is horrifying, cigarettes (or vaporizers) are fine[^2].  

Today the woman at the public pool told me they make everyone get out for 30 minutes every time they hear thunder. It made me think about one of my favorite memories, of body surfing off the coast of Zihuatanejo as a recently-downgraded-to-tropical-storm hurricane came ashore. My dad and I watched lighting hitting the ocean on the horizon in between catching waves. Salt water conducts much better than fresh. Amazingly, I'm still here.

And I know the public pool doesn't close down because anyone is actually paranoid about lightning. They close down like that because they're paranoid about getting sued if they didn't. And they're right, I have no doubt they would be sued, lightning or not.



[^1]: I ended up listing it on Craigslist and a few days later a man who wasn't afraid of mold towed it away. He already gutted it and is posting pictures to Facebook so I get to see what happens with it.

[^2]: Yes, I used to smoke. Many years ago.