The failure of living....

ITH PLASTICS!

Sweltry is the word. (Google doesn't like that word and has underlined it in red however it is part of my vocabulary so it stays.)  If I was made of Plastic I would probably melt.

Why am I in Carolina in the summer?  I keep asking myself that question.  I'm here to help my Mom and that is the honest answer and I have to stay busy so I do things...I work around our little homesteads, and keep things greased and the cogs moving....speaking of cogs this is the plastic piece that caused my van window to stop moving.  Notice how the groves are squashed.

I can't believe it is wise to use plastic for this part as its a twisted wire cable that winds around it and as you raise and lower your window it is wrapping around this piece trillions of times, up and down, up and down.... and as this plastic wears out, as you see, then the cable gets all mutilated and eventually stops moving as it gets tangled and caught in the works.  Just like 2 old sewing machines I finally tossed they had 2 plastic moving parts and both failed in the plastic part area. 

Regular maintenance around here includes lots of mowing, trimming, picking up limbs that fall from the mannnnny trees and watering plant beds as we have only a few and some plants in pots.   One project that was added to the list this week was moving the martin houses back into the field, I had moved them to the edge of the trees back in 2012 when the forced to sell chapter of my life was going on.  The squirrels did a number on these houses during that time near the trees where they could get on them and chew away at the plastic doors, So I had to order more doors.  These are the S & K Purple Martin Cottages and together  with 8 plastic gourds, they can house 32 nests! Perfect for a small colony.   IF ever I can get martins that is, normally I get great crested flycatchers and bluebirds. Another plastic failure...do you notice a pattern here?  Lowe's sells decoy purple martins to entice martins to nest at my place they are made of Plastic!  I think I'd enjoy whittling up some decoys myself out of wood. 

Take note if you have anything made of plastic be on guard for the day...once I attended a garden wedding, we sat in those plastic chairs.  A portly man of unknown poundage sat in one on the front row, and suddenly both front legs just snapped off! He went face over, to the ground!  Although it was NOT funny, I apologize for the case of giggles it brought inside my head.   During the entire affair all I could do was keep trying to NOT laugh out loud...it was worse than having a sneezing fit!  I kept trying to temper my giggles with "it was not funny, what if that had been you"... then I would visualize ME going over face first and that made me need to laugh so much I excused myself to the restroom just so I could let it all out!! Others must have thought me crazy! SO plastic can become an embarrassing event!

Here is another story for you about plastic!! When I took Mom to her new DR they wanted to do a bone density test.  In the other exam room divided by some sort of plastic divider, we could hear every word being said...

The tech exclaimed, "what in the world is that?"

the patient, "mumbled answer"...so then the tech goes out and comes back with the Dr. but they talk outside the plastic divider. 

"she has an old IUD in there she says its been in there 30 years." 

DR."What the hell, 30 yrs, how old is she, Good Lord she is 72 yrs old , she doesn't need an IUD." 

Dr enters cubical..."We can remove that for you, you don't need it anymore."

the patient "mumbles"

Dr outside again, "We can't make her take it out, just make a note of it and let it go."

I was bonking out in the other cube screaming in my head, "take it out."   It gave me the creeps knowing it was in there...made me wonder what other plastics are being concealed behind flesh?  My Mom has 2 titanium hip joints, but not plastic.  Most knee replacements are made of plastic!  I have seen them...

Riding an elevator with one of my former EMT/Paramedic partners, Mark, in Beth Israel Hospital for Special Surgeries in NYC.  We were taking a patient home after he had knee surgery.  When the elevator opened (we normally used freight elevators to take patients up and down)  (and this makes me wonder about the cogs in elevators winding up and down hope they are not made of Plastic.) so when it opened there was this rack full of little boxes, my (kleptomaniac) partner Mark crabbed one box and put it on the stretcher. I asked "why did you do that?" 

He replied, "I need an ace bandage for my knee." So he was stealing an ace bandage.  I was not in the habit of governing the morals of a grown man from Guyana. I simply governed my own life.  So later in the ambulance after the job was done he opened up his "ace bandage" box, inside was a brand new Knee Replacement made of plastic and titanium! Probably worth about $1000.00 His eyes nearly fell out of their sockets...All I said was,

 "are we learning yet?"

Then he started to wonder what he could get for it on Ebay...I reminded him it was stolen...I think in the end he tossed it in the trash!!  His car broke down one day on the BQE, plastic fuel pump.

After I moved back to SC and ended up back in the upholstery biz after swearing I'd never do upholstery again, I was once again working in a small group of  women.  My boss had this habit of giving people pet names...I have to admit, I have done this before if its an especially annoying person. This particular client was so rich she redid her interior designs on a whim....and she had that same inclination for facial enhancement surgery....my boss nicknamed her Plastic Face.  Not a very nice thing to say about anyone.. but I have to say her face gave you the impression that she was standing behind a sheet of plastic that had been stretched and then pressed to her skin.  Not attractive, not in the least.  

So the other day while I patiently waited for Mom to do her one hour of PT, in comes who else, but that lady!! She came over to speak to me and ask how I've been,  I had no recollection of her real name all I could think of was Plastic Face.  How horrid is that. Happy to report she had not had any more surgeries as I could tell anyways.

She got on the stationary bike by all appearances  it's made entirely out of plastic and it has lots of cogs!  Now a-days many street bicycles have plastic gears on them! I have an old bike, and not so long ago I came to own, by divorce, a new bike.  When I compare the 2, mine is a better bike hands down. NO Plastic in the important parts.  Still as sturdy and strong as the day it was purchased, the new bike "skips" when you ride it, the chain does not make good contact with the plastic gears. Go figure...next they will figure a way to make the chain out of plastic OH WAIT didn't I see that already in the hardware department, yellow plastic chain, which I'm sure would break with only simple pressure.

So I guess I'm not a fan of plastic when it comes down to it.  Plastic although has advanced society, how can we depend on it? I'd rather build on a solid foundation, not one that has such a short shelf life!  The Steel industry was not put to rest by a lack of need it was put to rest by plastic! At the root of plastic is the Gas and Oil Industry! Look at how many things are now made of plastic, just about everything! In Canada they now make their bills out of plastic!  I have heard it snaps if it gets frozen and it melts if it gets hot!!