Earth Day Sponge Bath

by Jim Washburn

Sequim abounds in public art (all photos by Jim Washburn)

I spent Earth Day as I so often have, on Earth. Gravity is a bitch.

More specifically, I’m in Sequim, Washington, the Lavender Capital of the USA, not that anyone’s fighting them for the title. It’s also the My Mom capitol of the USA, with fully 100 percent of the nation’s supply of my mom.

We watched Oprah, and you know she was celebrating Earth Day, hosting a number of cheerful helpful people with tips on how you can save the planet and your money at the same time, like by showering with your accountant and such.

Oprah kept coming back to the fact that there’s this island the size of Texas in the Pacific made entirely of discarded, long-lived plastic, as if this is a bad thing.

Me, I say plant a flag on it. America hasn’t had a new state in over 50 years, and this one would have a lot going for it. For one thing, it could keep growing with the population. I remember when this island was just a wee Tupperware Delaware; then it became a veritable Plastichusetts; now, if Texas does secede from the union, we wouldn’t miss it; and, if we just keep on consuming, maybe it’ll get so big we can call it Plalaska.

It should seem a dream come true for environmentalists and developers alike. What’s to ruin? Build whatever you like! It isn’t like you’re going to have locals going, “Man, you should have seen it before they fucked it up!” 

It would be the only state that snares it own food. Hungry? Just go disentangle a bird or dolphin from the beer caddies and Huggies. Plus, it would be our first portable state. Stick some motors on one end and we can transport its military bases, munitions factories and draftees direct to our next war zone quicker than you can say “Plastic or plastique?”

Meanwhile, in bucolic Sequim, they’ve had a pretty quiet couple of weeks in the police blotter. Some of the actual highlights gleaned from the Sequim Gazette and Sequim This Week:

» Lost credit card in area, E. Washington St.

» Daughter, 14, refuses to go to school, S. Rhodefer Rd.

» Thirteen-year-old not listening, yelling at parents, W. Hendrickson Rd.

» Dogs barking at reporting party when he walks by, Le Roux Rd.

» Problems with 17-year-old daughter, verbally abusive, Lake Farm Rd.

» Fifteen-year-old refuses to go to school, Penny Lane.

» Dog in area runs loose all the time, Cassidy Rd.

» Someone rang doorbell, did not see anyone, N. 7th Ave.

» Reporting party sold horse and new owner brought it back, Old Olympic Hwy.

» Theft of a ladder reported, W. Hemlock St.

» Two plastic carrots thrown at the callers reported, N. Blake Ave.

» People trying to put pink flamingos in yards reported, Kitchen-Dick Rd.

» Raw meat thrown in yard, Toad Rd.

Sort of makes your problems pale by comparison, doesn’t it? I lack an explanation for most of this mayhem, but did find some background on the pink flamingos. According to an article in the same paper, Sequim’s high school students—such few as who make it there without a police escort—are doing a fundraiser for their “safe and sober” graduation party, so they and their parents go around neighborhoods planting plastic lawn flamingos—soon to be the official state bird of Plalaska—on citizens’ front lawns, who then pay the students a $25 fee to have the flock removed, and a merry time is had by all, until the students try the same ploy using dead Indians next year.

The students’ goal is to raise $28,000. I cannot for the life of me imagine how a safe and sober party can cost $28,000, unless the idea is to hire Axl Rose to drink all the liquor for them.

Juan, there's a llama on the lawn

Sequim. Did I already say it’s bucolic? Maybe the lamb doesn’t lie down with the lion here, but the llama does lie down with the cows. No kidding, about five houses down from my mom’s there’s a pasture with cows and one llama hanging out together. The latter, I suspect, is a holdover from the days when rural folks got rooked into the raise-llamas-at-home-for-their-valuable-wool racket, back when they also fell for the raise-ostriches-at-home-for-their-tasty-meat scheme, both since eclipsed by the let’s-just-cook-some-meth business model.

Let me leave you today with an enviro-tip:

Are you ever doing cleanup in your kitchen when you find yourself exclaiming, “Damn, this sponge smells like Everett Dirksen!””

That’s the least of its problems. Suppose you wash a chicken in your sink. ““Hey thanks!” says Mr. Chicken, “I feel minty fresh all over!” But now your sink is less clean. According to a 2007 study, up to 15% of the weight of your USDA-approved chicken can be “fecal soup,” the food industry’s appetizing term for what happens when factory-farm machines are killing, plucking and gutting chickens at the rate of 70 per minute, and the intestines get ripped open rather than cleanly removed, and the chickenshit contaminates other chickens via the equipment and factory bath they all share. That‘s one reason why other nations balk at buying American chicken, and why you should make sure you clean and cook the bejesus out of yours.

When you clean the sink you cleaned your chicken in, your sponge can get its own fecal sponge bath of E. coli, salmonella, and other unpleasant pathogens. So what cleans the cleaner? Studies have shown that putting wet sponges in the microwave for two minutes kills some 99% of the bad stuff. Zapping them for four minutes gets it all. I compromise and do it for three. You can also stick them in boiling water, but it‘s not as effective.

Experts recommend doing this every other day, but if you’re like us and do half of your cooking with the telephone, you can probably get by zapping them every couple of weeks. Otherwise you might be cleaning your kitchen with the dirtiest thing in the house.

But doesn’t using the microwave like that waste electricity, spewing more carbon and mercury in the air from coal-fired plants, or keeping salmon from spawning because of dams, and shouldn’t we spare the chickens and go vegan to save the planet?

Yes, yes and yes. So just eat the damn sponge, OK?

Hello, Police? The car wash left out my carnauba wax

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