Like The Song Says, Love Is All Around Us
Like The Song Says, Love Is All Around Us
… But So Is Deadly, Toxic, Cancer-Causing Asbestos
It might’ve been food poisoning, or some medication I was on (such as brown liquor), or something like that… but it was probably just a dream. Whatever it was, those many years ago, it was SO real I eventually decided to give up my blossoming career as a male model and go into asbestos abatement.
In the dream, I was walking the Earth, I guess, and I suddenly felt the presence of a Spirit Guide, guiding my, uh, spirit through the dream.
“You’ll never get away from it,” the SG said. “It’s everywhere, all around you, even though the federal government tried to ban it for a hot minute, several decades ago.”
“The federal government tried to ban love?” I asked.
“No, my friend. I’m not talking about love. I’m talking about asbestos.”
“Oh,” I said. “Good thing there’s no such thing as a stupid question, heh heh.”
“There is such a thing, at least in this dream, and you are a moron. You should probably punch yourself in the face.”
Luckily, the dream changed just then, before I punched anybody in the face, and I found myself in my future home, several years later. I was married, and we had kids, including a belligerent teenaged daughter who liked to call me Moron Dad, for some reason. But I digress.
“Surely we’re safe from asbestos here, in our own home,” I told the SG, who was still hanging around, G-ing my S, I guess.
“Don’t be so sure,” he… she… it said. “There’s asbestos all over the place. Yes, it was illegal for a brief, shining moment, but the courts stepped in, and declared the ban unlawful. Now, even though it’s still illegal to mine or manufacture with asbestos in the U.S., it’s perfectly legal to import TONS of it.”
“Oh,” I said. And before he could taunt me a second time for my stupid assumption, I went ahead and punched myself in the face. It hurt.
“Yes,” SG continued, “it’s mostly in the building materials used to construct this… place. Wall boards, pipe insulation, flooring, yada yada yada. It’s in the baby powder your wife uses. It’s even in that cheesy faux jewelry your daughter’s wearing.”
“No!” I shouted. “Moron Daughter! Take that thing off!” But before she could roll her eyes and tell me off, the dream changed, and SG and I were at my office.
“And here?” I asked, trying not to be foolish. “Where is the asbestos here?”
“Same thing,” SG said. “Building materials, but also in some of this older office furniture. See the spray-on texturing on the ceiling?” “Yes.” “LOADED with the A word.”
“Say it ain’t so!” I remember crying, just before the dream changed and SG whisked me away on a whirlwind quest to escape asbestos.
We went to the movies, for a true “escape” – and found asbestos in the giant curtains that flanked the screen. We went to church, to try to pray the A away, only to find lots of asbestos in the acoustic ceiling tiles that helped muffle the sound of our “well, they try hard” choir.
We went to see Moron Daughter’s basketball game at her school, only to find the place loaded with deadly asbestos, from the building materials to the HVAC duct work.
SG even took me by the hospital, where he said I’d be running out the clock (gasp!) many years hence (whew), and there it was: The Asbestos Monster, in the hospital, not only in the building materials of this older building, but in the electrical wiring insulation and in the facility’s cooling tower.
“Fear not,” SG then said, as he whisked me back home. “Asbestos isn’t dangerous in its manufactured state. But when it’s disturbed, by something like a house fire (even a small one), or a flood from a burst pipe, or from a disastrous DIY project, well, it breaks into microscopic airborne shards, impales itself in your lungs, and causes you to have a nightmare you won’t wake up from.”
“Ugh!” I said. “What can I possibly do?”
That’s when I woke up in a cold sweat, and immediately started researching asbestos. Everything my Spirit Guide had told me during the dream was true!
But I also learned that you can have your property tested professionally for asbestos, and if you have a problem, you can have it abated by asbestos experts for a cost much lower than you might think.
Don’t have nightmares about the asbestos all around you. It’s there, but it doesn’t have to be a problem in your life. Have your place tested, and if there’s an issue, call an asbestos abatement expert (I can give you the number for a good one). It’ll cost much less than your treatments for mesothelioma lung cancer, or your hospital bill following a self-administered punch to the face.
