Within hours of my finishing my post about air pollution, Los Angeles’ air quality went back in the toilet.  I was stuck inside my house with air purifiers for two days and desperate to get out.  So I turned on my car air purifier and headed to the mall.  Stretching my muscles by walking in the mall seemed like a good antidote to cabin fever.

My cell phone rang on the way to the mall and, trying to be a law-abiding citizen for once, I pulled to the side of the road to answer.  When I tried to start the car again, the battery was dead.

So, after taking meticulous care of my lungs and writing about how important this is in the hope that others would take my advice and care for their lungs, I waited an hour in gross, polluted air for roadside assistance to jump my car.   If I hadn’t been laughing so hard at the irony of the evening I would have pulled my hair out and screamed.

I didn’t dare go to the mall, after all.  I went home to my air purifiers and watched N.C.I.S.

Car air purifier running, I drove through smog to Sears this morning to buy a new battery.  I decided to have some overdue routine maintenance done at the same time and called my husband to discuss whether I should come home while mechanics serviced the car.  He reminded me about the air pollution I was breathing in the service department’s waiting area and recommended I come home.  Oh yeah.  Duh.

My brain was already so mushy from crappy air that I had forgotten this important information.  Me, of all people!!!  Ironic, huh?

By the time I climbed in Mark’s truck and turned on the air purifier, I had breathed serious air garbage for over an hour.  I was a mush brain with slow, slurred speech, an aching chest, and a queasy stomach.  So much for practicing what I preached just days before.  Thank goodness for people who remind me when I forget.

Three hours later, my brain still isn’t functioning on enough cylinders to do the type of writing I had scheduled for today.  Help!  The deadline on that assignment is in stone and getting close.  I need my brain back.

I guess this shows why air quality is a crusade for me.  I know, personally, how much it can affect our health.  Hear the canary sing:  Cheep.  Cheep.  Gasp.