Insert Dirty Cow Joke Here. (Are There Any?)

It's one more example of yuppie irrationality trumping common sense: while it isn't something one would expect to find on the black market, a growing number of people across the country are going out of their way to get their hands on...duh, duhnn, duhnnnn... unpasteurized milk. Its sale is illegal in 15 states, and, as noted in the New York Times article, it's a potential carrier of disease-causing bacteria. However, people buy it in stores in states where it is legal, buy it mail order in places where it is restricted, and join raw milk clubs in order to slip through a loophole in the law regarding its sale. Some doting parents are giving it to their children and drinking it while pregnant. (I have a feeling these are the same people who rail against the evils of fluoridation and chemical additives in tap water, but somehow have reconciled the chemicals they inhale every time they smoke weed as being natural and therefore acceptable.)

Maybe they want the thrill of being involved with something underground and illicit (without having to worry about doing 5-10 if caught), or it could just be that they like feeling they're in on something the rest of us conventional slobs aren't hip to yet. Not keen ingesting disease-causing bacteria? How bourgeois...

See:

Should This Milk Be Legal? by Joe Drape
Posted August 8, 2007, www.nytimes.com
Link

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS (Or, HOW NOT TO BECOME AN APARTMENT MUMMY)

A few years ago, I read an article about a man who died in his apartment. Nothing strange there--a person could die anywhere: in their home, at work, on vacation, at the grocery store, Starbucks--but the horrible part of the story was that no one noticed until someone entered the apartment years later. It struck me how lonely this man must have been to not to know one person who occasionally checked on him or cared to see how he was doing.

I forgot about the story after a while, but I've started to see a surprising number of similar articles in the past few months. A Canadian man was found two years after he died, a Spanish woman passed away six years before a man who bought her house in a foreclosure auction discovered her, and German man was dead for about seven years before anyone stumbled across him. This also happened not long ago here in Columbus. A woman died in her home, and about a year later someone who broke in the home to rob her called the police and reported it. (Earlier that year police looked into other robberies of the home, but failed to notice the body in the course of the investigation. It seems the woman was a bit of a pack rat. No word on whether the previous thieves realized they were stealing a dead lady's couch.)

Although becoming a mummy and spending a depressing amount of time in bed or in front of the TV seems to be a problem that generally only affects the elderly and the random middle-aged hermit, it seems that without proper care, it could happen to any of us. Things to keep in mind:

1. However easy it may be to have your bills automatically paid through your bank account, if you have so little contact with friends or family that you think your death could go unnoticed, spend the extra half hour and write a few checks. It may even be a good idea to accumulate more debt--it'll improve the odds someone will come looking for you.

2. Turn the TV up at top volume. If you die in the middle of being a couch potato, a neighbor might at least get in touch with the landlord after a few weeks of listening to VH1 at full blast.

3. Don't keep cats. Or iguanas. (I heard an awful story about what happened to a man who died in a home with several uncaged iguanas.)

4. Don't become estranged from anybody, even if you don't like them. It seems like most of these accidental mummies had cut themselves off from their kids and other relatives. Who cares who did what to who...if you're old or sick, set aside whatever resentment you're holding onto and get in touch with your family. And if you're the bad guy, try to lure them back with talk of inheritance. They'll keep tabs on you.

5. If you're not in the mood to get chatty with tenants in your building or the people next door, think about keeping a sign in your window that will serve as nice, unobtrusive proof of life for the neighborhood. People will get used to the daily reminder of the date, and if "Alive on 5/19/07" is still up on the 30th, maybe a considerate passerby will become curious.

I suppose there are many more ways to avoid this sad situation, but the easiest is to probably just be nice and have a few friends who get in touch with you now and then. (Unless you have the kind of friends who think that being a mummy would be cool. In that case, you might just be better off with the cats and iguanas.)