Death by Potpourri
I seem to be the only person in these parts these days; but since I have some time to kill and in case anyone is still out there, I thought I'd relate a recent experience some might find interesting.
Yesterday afternoon I learned I'm not invincible.
My wife and I attended a friends wedding, and the hall in which the reception was held was a sort of high-style Victorian ballroom with fancy rugs, antique furniture, and crystal chandeliers. And lots of potpourri. Thick doesn't begin to describe the air. I smelled it as soon as we entered, and by the time we reached the newlyweds fifty feet away I felt like I was suffocating. It was like my esophagus was collapsing on itself. I sounded like someone with advanced COPD when I breathed and got outside as soon as possible. My wife drove us to the hospital where she is a nurse and "borrowed" an albuterol inhaler. After a couple of blasts things opened up and I stopped expecting my life to flash before my eyes. It was another couple of hours without smoking and a few more inhaler blasts before I could fill my lungs easily.
I've often joked that I'm willing to put just about anything but menthol in my lungs. In fact, looking back over the years I'm a little surprised at the variety of stuff I have put in them both recreationaly and otherwise. In addition to more than forty pack years of smoking and countless amounts of pot, a partial list includes aerosol alcohol, helium, nitrous oxide, assorted glue and other fumes (I was an adolescent huffer), benzine, cement dust and assorted chemicals with which I've worked like xylene, toluene, methane, acetylene, chlorine, etc. None of it has ever had any effect on my breathing. My standard explanation/joke is that my lungs have a protective coating of tar.
So, my advice for happy lungs: Stay away from potpourri. Breathing that shit will kill you.
Yesterday afternoon I learned I'm not invincible.
My wife and I attended a friends wedding, and the hall in which the reception was held was a sort of high-style Victorian ballroom with fancy rugs, antique furniture, and crystal chandeliers. And lots of potpourri. Thick doesn't begin to describe the air. I smelled it as soon as we entered, and by the time we reached the newlyweds fifty feet away I felt like I was suffocating. It was like my esophagus was collapsing on itself. I sounded like someone with advanced COPD when I breathed and got outside as soon as possible. My wife drove us to the hospital where she is a nurse and "borrowed" an albuterol inhaler. After a couple of blasts things opened up and I stopped expecting my life to flash before my eyes. It was another couple of hours without smoking and a few more inhaler blasts before I could fill my lungs easily.
I've often joked that I'm willing to put just about anything but menthol in my lungs. In fact, looking back over the years I'm a little surprised at the variety of stuff I have put in them both recreationaly and otherwise. In addition to more than forty pack years of smoking and countless amounts of pot, a partial list includes aerosol alcohol, helium, nitrous oxide, assorted glue and other fumes (I was an adolescent huffer), benzine, cement dust and assorted chemicals with which I've worked like xylene, toluene, methane, acetylene, chlorine, etc. None of it has ever had any effect on my breathing. My standard explanation/joke is that my lungs have a protective coating of tar.
So, my advice for happy lungs: Stay away from potpourri. Breathing that shit will kill you.