Heavy Metal

In the ongoing quest to keep ahead of Quinn in the perpetual child-proofing saga, we've found that we've needed to do a bit of shopping. We've looked at formaldehyde-free carpets, purchased non-toxic paint for her room, and recently, I (David) made a trip to a salvaged hardware store to find replacement lock for the stereo cabinet doors.

When I walked into the store, Quinn and I were greeted by the clerk and a customer, both of whom were women in their early 70s and seemed to be retaining dated biases about dads with infants when they criticized me for Quinn's lack of complete mummified bundling that ought to be required when transporting a child from a warm car to a warm store. After obtaining the appropriate hardware for the cabinet, I then asked if they had any radiator covers. The clerk said that they go too fast to keep any in stock. This was followed by saying that they only served to decrease efficiency anyway, so I might want to avoid them. I told her that I was simply looking for one to cover the one radiator in the house that has paint chips falling off of it.

This is when the sales pitch for childproofing really began to reveal itself. Both of the women thought I was foolish to take concerns about lead paint seriously. The customer-lady asked if that was one of the silly things they are teach young parents in those goofy parenting classes. This was followed by the 2 women walking down memory lane, finishing each other's sentences when it came to things like playing with the mercury beads that they obtained from broken thermometers (“...rolling it around in our hands” they both said simultaneously). That was when I really began to study the women, noticing that the customer-lady was wearing no other makeup with the exception of a very unnatural shade of Barbie-pink lipstick. I also realized then that the clerk had been struggling the whole time I was there to remember some simple terminology related to her profession, such as “brass” and “paint”. That is why I was overjoyed when the clerk finally relented her pro-heavy metal stance to provide me with an alternative to radiator covers; a sand-blasting service.

Who knows what future generations of elderly people will be able to accomplish when they aren't bogged down by the repercussions of eating too many lead paint chips.