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crumbling to dust
Dec. 31st, 2005 06:36 pmI don't wear slippers all that much. I might have worn slippers once since I moved here, almost 3 years ago. (It would have been 2004 Arisia, but I don't know if I actually wore them, or just thought "it would be nice to take my boots off and wear slippers in the hotel...now where ARE my slippers?") Anyhow, I found a pair of Isotoner slippers on the top shelf of my hall closet. Way back when I bought them, "isotoner slippers" indicated a type of slipper, not just a brand name, but the company seems to have branched out in recent decades. I mean stretch cloth uppers and a thin sole of leather or rubbery plastic.
I don't know why I really wanted to wear slippers this morning. Maybe it has to do with not feeling well. But I didn't want to put actual shoes on, just to go downstairs and do laundry, not leaving the building or anything. And I didn't want to spend 15 minutes on the cold floor of the laundry room in my socks (as I usually do.) So I put on the rediscovered slippers, and went into the bedroom to finish sorting my laundry.
*crackle*
*crunch*
I wasn't expecting to step on crackers. The wonderful person who likes eating crackers in bed hasn't been here in quite a while, and hasn't eaten crackers in bed here in much longer. I don't sweep every day, nor do I sweep with perfect efficiency, but I like to think I'd have caught something like that.
My slippers were disintegrating. The plastic sole had gone friable over the years, so it crumbled when I put my weight on it. The edges fell apart first, presumably because of the force concentration. As I know from years of trying to make sandwiches with matza, a friable *flat* thing on a *flat* surface* being pressed straight down has a reasonable chance of not breaking. No such luck on a curved surface, and the slipper pulls the edges of the plastic sole up a bit to make them conform to the foot. Then again, if the plastic was being attacked by something in my apartment, rather than just dying of old age, the edges were more exposed.
When I was in (chemistry) grad school, one of my colleagues kept a hairbrush in his desk drawer. Our desks were in the lab where we worked. He liked the kind of hairbrush that looked like an array of combs, with very thick, stiff, plastic bristles set in a rubbery base that was attached to the handle. Every 3-4 months, the rubbery stuff would get crumbly and porous. I don't know how much of it was solvent vapors, as opposed to dry air or badly-made hairbrushes. It's really amazing how much more careful we've become about safety and environmental concerns, in the less than 20 years that I've been working with academic and industrial labs.
I think I will try to avoid paranoia. It's probably safe to not worry about solvent contamination in my apartment. Slippers are associated with aging, right? So these were probably just decrepit. I suppose that would explain the crepitation. Next year, when the weather clears, I'll get some new slippers and grow old with them. Slowly, if all goes well.
I don't know why I really wanted to wear slippers this morning. Maybe it has to do with not feeling well. But I didn't want to put actual shoes on, just to go downstairs and do laundry, not leaving the building or anything. And I didn't want to spend 15 minutes on the cold floor of the laundry room in my socks (as I usually do.) So I put on the rediscovered slippers, and went into the bedroom to finish sorting my laundry.
*crackle*
*crunch*
I wasn't expecting to step on crackers. The wonderful person who likes eating crackers in bed hasn't been here in quite a while, and hasn't eaten crackers in bed here in much longer. I don't sweep every day, nor do I sweep with perfect efficiency, but I like to think I'd have caught something like that.
My slippers were disintegrating. The plastic sole had gone friable over the years, so it crumbled when I put my weight on it. The edges fell apart first, presumably because of the force concentration. As I know from years of trying to make sandwiches with matza, a friable *flat* thing on a *flat* surface* being pressed straight down has a reasonable chance of not breaking. No such luck on a curved surface, and the slipper pulls the edges of the plastic sole up a bit to make them conform to the foot. Then again, if the plastic was being attacked by something in my apartment, rather than just dying of old age, the edges were more exposed.
When I was in (chemistry) grad school, one of my colleagues kept a hairbrush in his desk drawer. Our desks were in the lab where we worked. He liked the kind of hairbrush that looked like an array of combs, with very thick, stiff, plastic bristles set in a rubbery base that was attached to the handle. Every 3-4 months, the rubbery stuff would get crumbly and porous. I don't know how much of it was solvent vapors, as opposed to dry air or badly-made hairbrushes. It's really amazing how much more careful we've become about safety and environmental concerns, in the less than 20 years that I've been working with academic and industrial labs.
I think I will try to avoid paranoia. It's probably safe to not worry about solvent contamination in my apartment. Slippers are associated with aging, right? So these were probably just decrepit. I suppose that would explain the crepitation. Next year, when the weather clears, I'll get some new slippers and grow old with them. Slowly, if all goes well.
