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Code Red days require an innovative idea to save humanity. Date published: 7/5/2003
I'M ALWAYS LOOKING ahead, trying to come up with a new invention, searching for a way to make my next million. Right now, I've got a sure-fire project in the works: the ozone sucker. I see great potential for this invention, a machine that could save humanity. The idea came to me the other day when I watched the TV weatherman predict that the air would be so stagnant for the next few days that a Code Red air alert already had been issued. In case you don't keep up with such things, Code Red is a smoggy condition so terrible that at least half the world's population will die if they go outside their air-conditioned homes while the alert is in effect. When I was a child, we simply called such periods "hot and muggy days" but that was before upper middle-class paranoia became the craze. Now, these are Code Red days. Actually, you won't die if you go outside on a Code Red day but, in the interest of ratings, TV weathermen want you to think you might. They advise viewers not to venture outside on such days for fear of suffering heatstroke or severe dehydration. Only those who normally work in air-conditioned offices pay any attention to these warnings; the rest of us just go about our business as usual. If we didn't, there would be no homes built, no streets paved or no farm work done between mid-June and mid-September. Somehow, despite those dire predictions, most of us seem to survive--although we don't smell very good at the end of the day. The reason we're not supposed to go outside on Code Red days is because of the ozone in the air. Gasoline engines, you see, release carbon monoxide and that gas reacts with something in the air to create ozone, and ozone will kill us all. Even putting duct tape (a government tool used to ward off terrorists) above your door won't save you from ozone. In the words of former President George "First Daddy" Bush, "Ozone is baaaad."
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
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