Get the lead out

I had to throw away my lead crystals decanters 6 months ago. Why?

So glad you asked...Ad Girl and Fun Girl thought this was ginormously funny.

Six months ago, social moron and I had a bourbon drink one night, out of a decanter that I've used for years. I think it was just one drink, perhaps two. Or maybe it was that we ate chocolate m&ms from a lead crystal bowl. It doesn't matter - it was something like that.

The next day, he has a headache or some other malady that makes his mind wander. He begins to think he has lead poisoning from the bourbon. Hello! My cat's name is mittens! What does he do?

He turns to Wikipedia, and all hell breaks loose. He sends me links, says I need to throw away my lead crystal decanters - the one I keep candy in and the ones with liquor. (I had about 4...) Says he thinks he has lead poisoning, and we gotta stop using these things b/c Wikipedia says they are super dangerous.

Dangerous.

Yeah, dangerous in a Cary, NC, kind of way.

In an ooh I wore white after labor day kind of way.

Not dangerous in an, "I live with terrorism, open sewage and lions outside my door" dangerous.

Lead crystal bowls from Bloomingdale's are not danger, especially if they are holding chocolate. The amount of time candy and chocolate lasts in this house can be measured in milliseconds and minutes, not days, months or years. There is barely time for the liquor or m&ms to hit the crystal before the stuff is in my mouth...

The sad thing is that I thought nothing of his craziness. He said I was crazy for having these decanters in my house with a child around, and I said okay, dude, I'll throw 'em away.

(Yet it wasn't crazy for him to live in an old, old apt. where he had to sign a lead paint release form? This one didn't occur to me.)

He schedules a doctor's appointment. The doctor, somewhat unwillingly, says sure I'll give you a blood test for this. (This was the easiest $200 bucks that doctor made that year...no doubt that guy laughed all the way home that day.) He thought I should go to the doctor. (Uh, no. No. Really. I'll wait, heh heh, for your results to come back before I do anymore for this.)

The blood test, of course, does not come back with any, any indication of elevated lead levels. And my decanters were gone by then.

I didn't think anything of this story until the other evening, and we had a really good laugh about this one and another one I'll regale y'all with later this week. Party stories. Good time, good times.