Expected Results

There’s a lot of things that surprise me, but you shouldn’t take that to mean everything does.

The other day, after my car passed its smog test by the slimmest of margins, I was wondering what I could do to lower those pesky hydrocarbons to, say, a more tolerable level. Being all hip and with-it and all, I did a Google search and the results were different than I expected. That’s the definition of surprising I believe in.

Rather than offering up anything particularly mechanical, my query returned links to pages of people selling or touting additives. “Pour this stuff in your gas tank, drive it out, and pass the test” pretty much sums up the process.

These products, which may or may not work as described or help in the slightest, don’t seem to me to be a way to “fix” your engine. Few details are given, but it reminded me of one of my all-time favorite expressions, the one that comes from marketing: People don’t buy drill bits, they buy half-inch holes.

That is, the results, not the means to acquire them, are what’s important, and I really shouldn’t have been so surprised.

I wonder, though, how these Blue Sky type products work their magic. Do they take all the things that could be contributing to hydrocarbons, burn ‘em up, and shoot them out the tailpipe before you take the test. That doesn’t sound particularly beneficial, even though it may result in you passing the test. How long before they come back? The directions on the Internet say to burn up the tank with the additive, then fill the tank as normal and then take the test, so this strikes me as more of a band-aid than a fix, if you catch my drift.

Still, any problem in this capitalistic society will have solutions provided by people out to make a buck. If we didn’t need paper, a lot fewer people would be growing trees.

The other thing that struck me as obvious within a minute of hearing about it was this recent discovery of pharmaceuticals in the water supply. While I, myself, am healthy enough not to need medicine, I’ve taken enough vitamins over the years to be familiar with green, smelly pee. Extra vitamins, that I bought and paid for, I might add, literally going down the drain.

It makes perfect sense that heart medications, birth control, antibiotics of all types, anti-depressants, cholesterol drugs and all the rest would also have enough extra stuff in the pills that there would be some waste. When you buy from a printer I think you get plus or minus ten percent of the quantity, and every carpenter or painter knows to get about ten percent more than they need. Just to be on the safe side, you understand.

Now, no one knows what the long term effect of taking all this mystery, unwanted medicine will be, but I sleep easier knowing I won’t be having any babies. I don’t think I’m getting as many anti-depressants as I might want, but it’s comforting to know that I’m getting a few molecules of heart medicine with every bowl of soup.

The steroids don’t bother me at all. They’ll just pass through my system and into the next person’s. If our digestive system had any way of handling those things, Roger Clemens and bicycle riders wouldn’t have to get shots in their butts.

So things which might surprise me at first really shouldn’t. If they do, they don’t do so for long, but that’s because my mental faculties are getting all this free medication!