Lead, That Old School Buzz

It's obvious why EPA is on the endangered agency list. All those regulations about lead paint are a serious drag on a homemade high. Big government = big bummer. Why roll the vintage Raleigh through a glassy alley when you can sit in the dusty comfort of your own living room and engage in hand-to-hands with a trusted baseboard? This supplier has all the lead particulate you can handle.

Ideally, abusive behavior is limited to the special times in your life. You generally don't want to take lead to work with you, and it's best if you don't snort some on a weeknight before an episode of So You Think You Can Dance. So, housers, do the right thing and tell your sponsors you'll only do lead in the garage. Apart from  self control, that will require a crowbar. Suppliers don't bail from their corners without some muscle.

Everything lovely in life requires moderation. Think about it. The moon only shines sometimes. Birds don't sing  for infinity. Ice cream comes in half-gallons. Treat lead the same way. To preserve our home's shrinking resource, we wear a respirator when harvesting lead particulate. It's like the masks worn by naked addicts cutting heroin -- poor man's lead -- in those gangster movies. (If you're shy, we recommend closing the garage door. The filters are pink.)

Then, after hours of delirious finger-grinding pleasure with various grit sandpaper, you've amassed a valuable yield of 86-year-old lead-infused paint dust.* The enterprise also results in the exposure of a milled board from an unknown tree species.

*We recommend strictly following all EPA regulations related to cleanup.

Gonna Hurt You, Wood

Our house is like a gift box containing little people who spend a lot of time trying to unwrap it from the inside.

The weirdness of reverse wrapping, and the presence of mini-humans, might make the mind wander. Survivalists see an analogy to tenacious, but failed, attempts at escape from confinement. A midwife would say we're cleansing our nest.  But really it just comes down to bad taste. Layers on layers of crap hide the original personality of our two-story brick row house.  Down with the pressed wood paneling!  Off with the decomposing wallpaper and death to the lead paint! Details on our struggle to follow. . .