A PSA: Brought To You By Cooler Weather - [Niedermeyer's Dead Horse]

It's that time of year again...

The leaves are beginning to turn, there's a slight chill in the air, and off in the distance, smoke billows from the chimney of a home where someone just can't wait until Winter to light that first fire.

The air is drier now and that means static electricity returns to zap us when we least expect it. Kids all around the world will put on their footy-pajamas and shuffle their little feet across the carpet, sneaking up behind some unsuspecting victim and ZAP!

Cries of DAMN IT! will fill the air.

You can threaten to toss the little jammie-wearing bug zappers into the oven but, they just won't be deterred. Why? Because it is just so much fun!

Face it. You like doing it too. However, there are times when static electricity becomes deadly serious, and this is the season to be most cautious about it.

In a study by the Petroleum Equipment Institute, it was determined that static electricity has been responsible for a number of gas pump fires each year. Of the nearly 200 cases they investigated, the majority of cases involved women. It seems that women are far more likely to set the pump to automatic and then climb back into the car until the pump has stopped. Sliding back out of the car creates friction with the seat = static electricity.

Damages from such fires have resulted in everything from singed hair (most common) all the way to death. Damage to the vehicles involved most often resulted in a total loss.

It's easy to discount the recent warnings that are now applied to the pumps because, at least to me, the discharge of static electricity prior to pumping was just simple common sense. The problem in my line of thinking is that so many lack basic common sense. They NEED a warning. It's for their own good. It hurts to deliberately shock yourself, but I found that using the back of my hand hurts much less than using my fingertips and hurts a helluva lot less than being set on fire.

So, you've been warned. Don't come back and tell me later that you set yourself on fire because you just had. no. idea. that electricity + gas fumes = BOOM!

Similarly, don't come whining to me when your attempt to blow dry your hair in the shower or to make toast in the bathtub ends with less than optimal results.

Did you not read the warning labels, morons?!

posted by Open Blogger at 08:48 PM

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