Notes of
Concern…
…Jackson Blair
Hazards of Life
For a long time governments, federal, state and local, have been looking for more ways to help us.
When they find new ways to help us, it is usually time for us to look out!
Lately, we have been treated to ways the Feds have been helping us through wiretaps, IRS shenanigans, and giving guns to our enemies in Mexico.
The national press is doing a pretty good job of covering all that, so I am just going to focus on two ways the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is helping me.
As a fellow of a certain age, and entertaining some arthritis in my hands, I am not happy that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided that others and I might spill gasoline if we overflow our automobile gas tanks, and therefore they have outlawed the automatic portion of the gasoline station hose.
This is the little piece of metal that permits you not to have to stand there pushing down on the throttle with arthritic hands and permits the pump to fill your tank and automatically shut off.
It is a huge inconvenience to folks like me to have to hold the lever down for a long period of time, but I suppose there is some research somewhere in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Never-Never Land indicating that when the automatic pump falters there is gas spillage.
Now I am a pretty regular reader of papers and watcher of television news, but somehow I must have missed the significant growth in gas spills at gas stations due to the negligence of the customer. Those numbers must have been dramatic to warrant the attention of the legislature in Massachusetts.
Whatever that research is, it has yet not made it to Connecticut, New York, Washington, DC, Virginia, or North Carolina. I took a recent road trip through those fine states, and each of them permitted me to fill my gas tank automatically. One would think the officials in Massachusetts would not keep their research secret but rather share it with their fellow states. It would just be the right thing to do.
It made me feel really blessed to live in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as I was driving south.
Boy, was I lucky.
Not one gas spill in any of those states on my route. Phew. Good to be home. They are in for a real surprise when Massachusetts sends them the data.
For readers who live in states less interested in your safety, move immediately to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts before you find yourself awash in spilled gasoline.
The other area of government protection I want to focus on in this column relates to smoke alarms and carbon dioxide alarms.
The Commonwealth does not want me to die of smoke inhalation. They also would prefer I not inhale carbon monoxide. For their concern I will be eternally grateful. One has a great feeling of being loved when one’s government works so hard to keep you safe.
Prior to their legislating on these two hazards, I had to look out for myself. Traditionally, we would have some smoke detectors in the house, maybe three or four in key locations. More recently, we splurged and got carbon monoxide detectors for the kitchen and the master bedroom.
We felt pretty good about our vigilance.
Then, just to be even more certain that we were taking good car of ourselves, we added to our ADT Home Protection system two smoke alarms tied in to a monitoring system.
I will let the readers do the math. We had “mucho” alarms in our home. Some of them were even monitored when we were not at home.
We were in for a real surprise. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts obviously did not think we were safe enough.
We were doing some renovations and decided it would be a good time to be certain our home met the Commonwealth’s code requirements.
I called on a personal friend who also happens to be an experienced member of the local fire department, Martin Brooks, and he came to my home to inspect and advise. Marty is a first rate fireman and a straight talker, so I knew I would get good advice. Since he often is the representative of the fire department who certifies a house is in compliance getting the scoop from him was even more valuable.
He was professional, attentive, and helpful.
Marty informed me that I am very much out of code.
Who knew?
Seems over the years, as the Commonwealth was busy finding new ways to protect me, they decided I had to have a smoke detector outside every one of my bedroom doors.
Whew.
Who knew?
Marty saw my bewildered look and told me I was actually quite lucky. My house is over 100 years old and therefore “grandfathered” in some ways. Evidently if my home were newer the requirement is that I would need smoke detectors both inside every bedroom as well as outside every bedroom door.
How lucky can I get? How fortunate to find this out and to have the chance to do everything the Commonwealth wants me to do.
Then some wise state official realized a fire might occur when I was asleep, so detectors are also required on each floor, in the kitchen, in the basement, and in the family room.
I also learned if my home were younger, these smoke detectors would have to be hard wired to “talk to each other.” Marty told me that meant if there were a fire in one area of my home, all the alarms would go off.
Who knew detectors talked?
Who knew they talked to one another?
I am still pondering the message the Commonwealth is sending me in telling me since my home is really old my units do not need to “talk to each other” and if there is therefore a fire in the basement, I won’t know about it in the bedroom until most of the home is ablaze.
My readers probably realize I am only talking about smoke detector rules here, right?
Well, rest easy fellow denizens of Massachusetts because the rules regarding carbon monoxide detectors are equally onerous.
If I add the eleven detectors that it seems I need, I will need to spend between $500 (for the plastic stick up kind) to $1200 for the serious ones offered by ADT and monitored.
For my regular readers this can become a contest. You can try to guess what I will do.
For those friends who visit my home regularly, let me say that should your eyes look upward as you make your way through my home, you will see a great many little white cones with small flashing red lights and know that should that secret killer, carbon monoxide, be emanating from any corner of my old home, you will have a chance to run outside and breath good fresh air.
Further, visiting friends will know that should there be a fire in any room of the home, you will have enough time to escape to safety.
Of course, since my detectors will not be “talking to each other,” you are at risk if you are spending the night, unless the fire actually occurs in the room you are occupying.
But then again, because my home is old, you will not know until the flames have engulfed you in the bedroom and reached the required detector outside the bedroom.
Alternatively, if you only visit friends living in newer homes, you will be safe both in your bedroom and in the hall outside as your head to the bathroom.
For readers who live in states less interested in your safety, move immediately to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts before fire or carbon monoxide gets the better of you.
Who knew that in the state where self reliance was valued, individualism celebrated, and personal responsibility encouraged, the government would accept the burden of insisting I decorate my home with little units that talk, or do not talk, to one another and that if I fail to do so, I will be between Plymouth Rock and a Hard Place?
Where are the Sons of Liberty when I need them?
No comments:
Post a Comment