Why, yes, my standards are low. And no, they have never asked me to sit on their committee. Perhaps those Nobel folk are afraid of how popular and insightful my prize-awarding decisions would be.
Because, truthfully, there is no more earth-shattering invention than the heat lamp. (You may choose to dispute this statement. You will, however, be utterly wrong. Or even if you are right, I will not admit it. To you. But I may quietly, and without attribution, adopt your view. You will need to be satisfied with this.)
At dinner last night, we opted to sit outside (the restaurant was projecting Casablanca onto the wall of an adjacent building so it seemed like a good idea, although in retrospect I do not recommend watching a movie for the first time without sound).
As the temperature dropped into the mid-sixties (high-teens for you Celsius folk) it started to get uncomfortable. (Yes, I know – when I lived in Chicago and it reached that temperature, we all put on our shorts and went to the lake and got sunburned and talked about the “heat wave” – but my blood has thinned since moving west.)
Then, out of nowhere, some blessed, blessed man turned on the heat lamp.
You mean the propane umbrella things. Those are good.
However, I can tell you a story about a heat lamp/sun lamp. Sometimes they are not so good.
A woman at work used to work at a large factory in California. Her office was a tiny space in the middle of this huge building and it was freezing. She told her boss and the next day he told her he put a heater under her desk.
Sure enough, she sat at her desk and it was nice and warm. She worked the entire day, went home and was going to take a shower beofre going out on a date that night. She tried to take off her panty hose, and couldn’t.
They had melted on her!
The boss had put a heat lamp/sun lamp under her desk and she had just spent eight hours with it slowly melting her panty hose on to her skin. She callled her mother who came tearing over, got one look and called 911.
They took her to emergency room at the next hospital and she was admitted to the burn victim unit with 3rd degree burns over her legs. It took years, and several skin grafts.
There was a lawsuit follow up and lets just say, after two years of doctor visits, there was enough money left over after the hospital bills for a new red Ford Mustang.
I took a class once (or, more properly, was forced by my employer to attend this nearly useless seminar that included a class) called something like, Travel Tips From Stewardesses. Yes, this was a looong time ago, and held in a Place That Time Forgot, so they actually called them stewardesses.
Anyway, one of the tips was when you fly, do not wear nylon hose or nylon socks, because if the plane goes down and there’s a fire, the nylon will melt onto your skin. So for a long time after that, I was Very Careful about what I wore on the plane. Until I realized: (a) most of the flight attendants wore hose; and (b) if the flight is going down, melty hose is the least of my worries.
I still love me my heat lamp. But I will love me my heat lamp from a safer distance if I’m wearing nylon.
Yeah, I’m guessing that the ubiquitous fleece would also be a Very Bad thing to wear in a fire. Melted plastic is bad.
Still, my vote for the Nobel Committee is the genius who invented those “wake-up” grooves on the sides of highways. I suspect those have saved many a life.
You know, I think the same thing about the person who came up with air conditioning. Every few years I have my a/c go out on me some time during the summer. There is no misery quite like being awake at three in the morning because it’s 115 degrees, and even the fan blowing on you hurts.