Every time I drive by the corner of Grandiflora and Waterford, I see a sign that announces:
Today is August 28 and I'm seriously worried about those workers who've been testing the sewer smoke for the last 11 days. After all, smoking sewers must be a bigger health risk than smoking tobacco. Don't you think?
Surely someone has reported this to the city by now. We need to get those people out of the sewers. They're probably lying around, in some chemical-induced stupor like the people in opium dens we used to hear so much about.
My first thought when learning about this sewer smoking was that another silly study or test was underway that would tell us what we already knew. Or if not something we already knew for certain, then something we strongly suspected.
I remember working as a laboratory assistant for a certain chemistry professor at my alma mater when he was studying the effects on laboratory rats of drinking whiskey. The study required a case of Jack Daniels, Black Label, Tennessee sipping whisky, and several crates of white rats.
You're probably thinking that I don't need to tell you the results of the study. You're probably thinking that the rats became intoxicated and then adopted silly if not downright irresponsible behavior. That happened, of course, but it was a secondary result.
The seminal finding was that the consumption of Jack Black resulted in silly, irresponsible behavior in student laboratory assistants. But even if that specific result wasn't on your immediate radar, you must still agree that we didn't need a study to know it would happen. But that's not the thing that interests me today.
After a bit of reflection on these unnecessary studies and their findings, I found myself plunged into deep thought. As you well know, too often when a man of my mental powers is deep in thought, nothing comes of it. The machinery whirs for a while and that's the end of it. But on this occasion, voila! I know; it's something the French say. I don't know why they say it but it sounds good so I say it too. Voila!
You see, it occurred to me that I might be onto something that would make Ms. Wonder happy and also be a bit of goose for yours truly. Not actually goose, of course; a figure of speech. I'm actually a big supporter of geese rights.
In this case, the goose is money. You see, surprising as it may be to you, I'm aware that some of these controlled studies result in a flight to Oslo and the awarding of Nobel Prizes. And those prizes come with a substantial bit of goose.
I decided to look into the matter a little further. First, I reviewed some recent studies to get an idea of the current trends. Here are a few actual research projects that I found:
- The American Heart Association is responsible for a study showing that patients recovering from a heart attack can reduce chest pain and improve quality of life if they stop smoking cigarretes.
- According to a study reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology, older workers bring valuable knowledge to the workplace.
- A recent study reported in the Journal of Health Psychology shows that being homeless is bad for physical and mental health.
- Statistical analysis reported in The American Statistician proved that the Mexican drug war increased homicide rates.
Now if, like me, you see an opportunity in all this to do a little Google research, write a paper, and then board a plane to Oslo, let me suggest a few ideas that I'm kicking around. Run these up your flagpole to see if any of them inspire you:
- Does a traumatic head injury leave the victim with headaches?
- Does daily jogging increase the likelihood of knee surgery? Or better yet, does knee surgery intefere with jogging?
- Does drinking alcohol cause people to feel more relaxed at parties? (Assuming that everyone has been vaccinated.)
- Does advancing age increase the probablity of accidental injury?
Those are just a few ideas that've come to me since sewer smoke testing. I hope these thoughts are not a direct result of smoking the sewers. I'd love to hear your ideas. Perhaps we can share that Nobel Prize.