Living Ain't Easy · Posted May 16, 08:35 AM by Todd Babiak

And today we learn, again, that Canadians do not get enough vitamin D.

This causes no end of consternation in the Babiak household. I’m terrified of skin cancer, on account of my never-wearing-sunscreen-until-quite-recently. Yet now I’m also afraid of a vitamin D deficit; cancer, rickets, male pattern baldness, colitis, the shimmies, encephalitis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, dropsy, self-loathing, sore knees, multiple sclerosis, blindness, and the shits are now attributed to a vitamin D deficiency.

Much obliged, various ancestors, for settling in Canada!

At the park, where we learn most of what we have learned in recent years, one of our neighbours declared that several common ingredients in sunscreen also cause debilitating and humiliating cancers. Not to mention blood poisoning and schizophrenia. And taking too much vitamin D, through unregulated supplements, can destroy your liver and inspire murderous thoughts.

This is the modern condition.

Recently we learned from Epcor, the utility company that provides our water, that the pipes leading to our house are made of lead. In the helpful material provided by Epcor, the company suggested it’s a good idea to run the water for several minutes every morning to flush out any impurities that might cause gross deformities, learning disabilities, and severe mental illnesses in our children.

Yet we had paid a premium to buy water-saving appliances. We had stopped buying bottled water, because it’s plasticky and encourages the privatization of depleting water sources. And I’m still trying to get over all the Bishphenol A my family consumed through Nalgene bottles and baby sippy cups. We threw it all away recently, in favour of stainless steel containers that, like the lead-filled Tickle Me Elmo doll, were manufactured in China — where lead apparently falls from the sky, like rain or perhaps fairies. No, we didn’t throw it all away. We recycled the Bisphenol-A, so it can make its way into freezer bags and Lipton microwaveable meals in a tub.

Today, the forecast is 26 degrees. I’ll go out in my short-shorts for as long as I can. Until I am paralyzed.

  1. Good lord you’re funny.


    trinity67    May 21, 03:58 PM    #

  2. I am gonna smack you


    Kirk    Jun 6, 10:14 AM    #


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